Week 10: Youth Booth

The youth that I get the opportunity to live and work alongside are incredible beings. 

They come from places that I cannot imagine having to live in. 

The grow up too quickly, often times taking care of their family and supporting their younger siblings.

They lose loved ones to0 early in life.

Yet they all overcome these hurdles to pursue their passions and dreams.

One example is this guy.

18-year old Musiime Ivan.

He comes from Nebbi, which is located in the remote West Nile region of the country, but relocated to Kampala to pursue better education and more opportunities. 

He is currently in an adult, continuing education 2-year course at Makerere University that will allow him to complete Secondary school.  His favorite subjects are biology and English as he enjoys the sciences and understands the importance of them.

Ivan’s favorite thing about living in the capital are the people, the city, and the food.

When one is to look at Ivan’s family, it is much more than what many consider to be a traditional family.  He is the second born of five children, with three brothers and one sister.  His dad died when he was still young and believes it was cancer or pneumonia from heavy smoking.  His birth mom, who was HIV+, died when Ivan was two years.  Ivan and his siblings are all HIV-, which means his Mom was successful in taking her ARVs during pregnancy.  The woman he considers his mom, who by blood is his maternal Aunt, is still alive and lives in a village outside of Fort Portal in the West.  This is the woman Ivan looks towards and attributes his upbringing to. 

As Ivan nears the end of his education, we have been working on his goals.  He wants to be a businessman selling fashion clothes and one day would want to design them as well.

Goal mapping!

Like many of the others, he also wants to be a professional dancer.  In order to combine these two careers together, he would sell his fashions at the events where he would be performing and entertaining.

As he reflects back on life he says one of the easiest moments has been meeting different people.  On the opposite end, one of the hardest moments was when he started dancing because he did not know any of the techniques although he was able to overcome this by working hard and putting in a lot of effort.

If he could change one thing about the world it would be some of the children’s lives, for example the orphans, street children, and those who are mistreated at home.  “Some of these ones are young and they do not know what the world is all about.  They do not know where to start from and have no support.  I would want to build an orphanage where I would keep them and give them food and shelter and after that build schools where they would study from.”

Ivan and I have a lot of conversations about his future and one common theme that comes up is education.  I am encouraging him to continue with his studies yet he disapproves the school structure here.

“Tara, up until University you are in class from 6a to 6p.  The way the teachers teach, they are not prepared.  We just memorize.  They need to teach by demonstration and not just lecture.  We would understand and succeed more.”

No argument.

Ivan traveled to Poland and France in 2012 to perform on behalf of In Movement and one of the things he learned from his travels were about the different cultural dances and languages from the other performers.  “The Italians that came from Rome dressed in dresses with a sash.  Have you ever seen Gladiator?  It was like that.”

He wants the youth of the world to know, “If you are having a talent, do not give up.  Show the people so that you can get ideas and advice about how to best achieve your goals.  Also participate in everything because there are more and more opportunities.  Work really hard; work hard for a better future.  Do not give up."

Ivan dances in the dance company Inspirationz, made up of some of our alumni, like Edgar, Frank, and Hamuza. 

Here I Stand was showcased at the End of Year 3 Performance.  At 0:48, he is the tall one on the right hand side in the front.

At 1:06 in Happy Kampala he is the one rocking out in the blue shirt.

At 2:05 in Imagine, Ivan comes in as the hip-hop music starts.  This was the performance that helped raise money for Fred when he needed surgery.