ASTEP has been working hard to establish a venue for teaching art to today’s youth and using it as a catalyst for education and awareness. The ASTEP arts camp in Port Elizabeth, South Africa aims to do just that as we break down the barriers of racism, confront negative issues pertaining to our diverse population, and to increase awareness and empower the feelings of individualism.
The ASTEP arts camps experience has been built to offer its participants artistic alternatives for channeling their emotions as opposed to drug abuse, violence or crime. It is a safe environment where the arts are used as a vehicle of self-exploration and expression and where young people are taught the motivational skills to care for and love themselves.
The ASTEP Experience is offered free of charge for participants, and provides dance, drama and literature workshops for the children of Port Elizabeth over their winter break.
The week-long experience starts daily at 8:30 and ends around 4 p.m. During that time, the students are able to work with arts professionals in a safe and inspiring environment. Throughout the day, there will be numerous opportunities for the sharing of new work among the students and the teachers. For many of the students, this will be their first exposure to the arts.
ASTEP partners with Ubuntu Education Fund (www.ubuntufund.org), a South African organization dedicated to working with the people of Port Elizabeth to develop quality education and healthy communities in the new South Africa. Ubuntu provides more than 40,000 people, especially orphans and other children made vulnerable by AIDS, poverty and inequality, with life-saving health services and essential educational programming. As part of their comprehensive Health and Empowerment Initiatives, Ubuntu has developed camps to care for orphans and vulnerable children when they are most susceptible to abuse, during school holidays. Together, ASTEP and Ubuntu offer these children a nurturing space to learn, create and play through our dynamic performance art programming.
The AIDS pandemic has ravaged the nation of South Africa to a greater extent than any other country on earth. This nation of 43 million has more than 5.3 million known AIDS sufferers and statistics indicate that 50% of today's youth under the age of 15 in South Africa will die within the next 10 years.
The Eastern Cape is one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, with the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Unemployment in the townships of Port Elizabeth hovers at 80%. More than one-third of the population still lives in informal settlements, made up of tightly clustered shacks with scant public infrastructure.¹
Access to adequate nutrition, sanitation, health care, housing and educational facilities remain a challenge for most children growing up in these communities.¹
With a 32% HIV prevalence rate, every person in Port Elizabeth has been directly affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. One in four high school girls are HIV positive, by age 20, one in three. A conservative estimate is that 25% of girls in the community are sexually abused before the age of 18. Over 60% of rape victims in South Africa are girls under the age of 15.¹
It is the hope of ASTEP to provide sacrificial immediate aid in the form of education and dedication to those in the townships of Port Elizabeth who are suffering from AIDS and its devastating effects on the nation while creating long term, self-sustaining solutions to assist this community’s serious needs.
¹Ubuntu Education Fund, "Our Community" [http://www.ubuntufund.org/about/community.html] Oct. 2007.
