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2010: Year of cataclysm, year of defiance
CHIPAWO
January 10, 2011

For CHIPAWO the Old Year was a year of Northern contrasts. Just as in the North the Summer fades as Autumn strips it bare, ushering in the icy embrace of Winter only to give way after long and hard endurance to the flowers and the life-giving showers of Spring so here in Zimbabwe in March and April - autumn in the southern hemisphere - CHIPAWO was stripped bare by the drying up of institutional support and the stagnation of the market. There followed a winter of survival and defiance at the lowest level of its existence. However though income never really improved and calamaties continued to occur - the burning down of the Yellow Bus, the theft of the main CHIPAWO computer with all its documents and archives, the near fatal crash of the Kombi taking staff to Dotito for a training workshop and the theft of its best camera, the Sony PD170 - by the end of the year it was possible to say that in more ways than one, CHIPAWO had had an extraordinary year.

In my twenty-one years of life and work in CHIPAWO, I wrote many reports. One theme cropped up over and over again - this is the contrast between the poverty of the organisation's finance and the wealth of its achievement. As I narrated to you towards the end of the year in my account of how a CHIPAWO Angel saved a CHIPAWO life, when sthe Angel said, as she drove away after giving us the life saving cash: "Take it as a donation, I know CHIPAWO is poor.", I replied: "Thank you but CHIPAWO is rich."

CHIPAWO over the years has demonstrated this - almost always a poor organisation financially, it has almost always been rich in achievement. And this was proved again last year. CHIPAWO lost almost all its offices, its Media Centre and most of its staff. The Executive Director's post was abolished and Chipo Basopo was appointed Manager with a staff of four. Even now, most months salaries are left unpaid or only partly paid. The organisation virtually runs on voluntary, unpaid dedication, yet the record of what this little, this rump, CHIPAWO did last year is inspiring. How in these circumstances was CHIPAWO able to continue to service its Arts Education centres and actually add to their number, hold a successful End-of-Year Concert and an extraordinary Christmas Show in which 250 children took part?

How did it register a year of activity in the Youth Programme, the New Horizon Theatre Company in particular, unrivalled in previous years? There were the previews of 'Secrets of a Woman's Soul' and Tagore's 'The Post Office', the distinguished participation with 'The Most Wonderful Thing of All' in the 'Ibsen Through African Eyes' Workshop in Lusaka and the rousing collaboration with the Spanish Embassy in the staging of the Shona translation of Calderon della Barca's 'The Dream of Life'.

There was the sparkling involvement of the Harare Junior Theatre in the 11th World Festival of Children's Theatre in Lingen, Germany, and the exchange with the Drakomir Children's Theatre in Ribe, Denmark.

Despite the loss of the Media Centre and the closing down of the Media Unit and the subsequent theft of CHIPAWO's best camera, Farai Kuzvidza's popular children's television programme, 'Nde'pi Gen'a', continued to attract an ever-growing viewership on ZTV. It is currently having a breather but it is due to return refreshed with the new season.

The Manager of CHIPAWO, young Chipo Basopo, the veteran maestro, Sekuru Enock Majeza and Batsirai Kunvzi, the general technician, assisted by their tireless volunteers from the Youth Programme as well as the irrepressible children and parents of CHIPAWO can claim the credit.

Chipo in particular has had to carry the can - at times almost all by herself - as her injury in the fateful Kombi crash, followed shortly after by her life-threatening illness, took Deon, Chipa's right-hand woman from her side. This year's Christmas Show, bigger than ever, Chipo had to manage and direct almost all by herself as the arts educators and almost all the youth were participating in the Calderon rehearsals and performance. Anyone who saw her on that night will have recognised the extent of her powers. This is how a member of the audience described her role in an email: Chipo handled it all with her team - rescuing little ones who drifted off in the wrong direction, compering with aplomb, shifting scenery, taking some photos, doing the lights and giving a very emotional speech at the end.

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