Highlighting Changemakers - Ayaa Musuya Muttu
Ayaa is Art Curator for the Great African Art Banner, a project that seeks to work with artists representing all nations of the African Continent in creating a 55km art Banner depicting the Hopes, Dreams and Aspirations for the future of the Continent. It is set to run Continent wide from January 2020-2023. The moving Arts Project will travel across Africa with a group of its best artists to create arts which enhance dialogue around our dreams. It will also take a selected group across the globe to highlight the Arts and Social Development on the Continent. Find out more by contacting Ayaa at ayaamusuya@protonmail.com, +256 750 320659, facebook & Instagram: ayaaspeaks
Introduction
My name is Ayaa Musuya Muttu, an Artist, and the Founder and Director of SistaSistaAfrika, an organization that seeks to encourage female to female mentorship, inspiration and learning in order to raise awareness and catalyse action around social issues impacting our communities. I strongly believe that the practice of the arts is a process that develops our own personal life skills as observers of our environment and enables us to express our unique perspectives, aspirations or solutions to problems in we see.
Why choose to be a community activist?
As an Artist and Creative i am very aware of the value of art as a catalyst for sensitization and direct story telling to enhance actions that inspire us to improve our livelihoods. Artists are observers of their societies, through their ability to gain inspiration from their environment, they are most influenced by it, and are able to visualize most ably the state of the world. Art is about beauty, and when the world doesn’t reflect it, we feel a deep desire to portray the possibilities, lessons and solutions. As an artist,, a woman and an African, my environment means that there is much that needs doing, and I am aware I have the skill to be a part of catalysing actions toward bettering the picture we see.
I have a special interest in the empowerment of girls and women, as they are a vital resource in the development and upliftment of the entire community. SistsSistaAfrika was borne out of the understanding that ‘Who feels it, knows it!’ and that women and girls mentoring each other goes a long way in enhancing our ability to better understand the challenges we uniquely face, and that the examples of women and girls, who have mode it, inspire of, go further in inspiring other women and girls. My work thus seeks to inspire and enhance our abilities to take action in improving our own.lives and as an outcome the communities we live in.
The arts are utilised through their diverse mediums as a driving tool for awareness, exploration and to create an atmosphere of openness to dialogue.
I also work closely with schools and Institutions to encourage inclusion of the arts as teaching tools for expression and therapy that they can offer, especially to children with special learning needs.
My dream is that all children who have special needs on the continent, can be supported, and their positive impact can be seen! We are judged by how we treat the least fortunate among us.
What inspires the work?
I grew up in a home and community where moving forward meant never doing it alone. I was always taught and encouraged to find ways to be of service to my family, community and any place I saw there was need for it. Everything I learned rested on this foundation and as I grew older finding ways to use my personal skills to comfort, educate or inspire others, came easily to me…it’s the only way I knew how to be, and so even when I was disillusioned by the things I saw in the world, rather than give up, I wanted to find others of like mind, willing to do whatever we could to keep the light shining when it seed it had gone out. I also do not believe in others solving your problems…either we are part of the solution, or we are part of the problem…this has always been a mantra around me that inspires my continued actions, in whatever small way...
I truly believe that we all are part of making this works better. I believe the answer lies in us all developing our unique skills, in whatever field, and then bringing them in to answer to the diversity of needs the world has...this is how we all can, step by step, create change and live our dreams.
Success stories
A shortened version…a young lady who worked for me at a Restaurant I managed, who walked in shy and uncertain, and after the mentorship I made sure we included in our staff training, Specific to young women as that was my passion, she blossomed enough to be made Supervisor and Manager when I left. She credits the fact that we spoke of her potential so much that she developed it for herself. She is currently a Criminal investigator with the Uganda Police!
The deaf children I was honoured to meet in Tanzania, and who after setting up an art expression centre and vocational training space were visibly more expressive of their stories and more confident by using the arts to find their voice in a silent world.
The success stories, and there are many, show me that when we encourage people to focus on what they can do, and find ways to develop and add value to that, you catalyse the magical capability for them to take their own development into their own hands…the best way to empower people is to remind that they do have the power still, not to think we give or take the power to them.
Key Lessons
1. If you are educated, your education is only useful if it answers to a fundamental need in the world. Unless our knowledge is improving lives beyond just us and our families, unless our education is leading to the betterment of the world, it is not useful.
2. It takes all of us, with our diverse perspectives, skills and potentials to impact the world on a large scale. It will need us all to develop our capacities and to then combine and share them to meet the diversity of needs to create a better world.
3. It will take us working, systematically and collaboratively, knowing it will take time, but time is best spent doing whatever parts we can, in order to achieve far reaching impact.
4. Impossible is only impossible when we do nothing to try to achieve Possible. Small steps daily are better than no step. Eventually the answers come and we have moved further. Just do it!
1. Cohesive and interconnectedness…a knowledge of who is doing what and how we can all bring our skills and resources to support each other. Our work no matter where we are is leading up to the same goal. If we can start to link in to each other, I believe we would realise how much we are all actually doing…
2. Finances on the continent ,especially for many community activists who work out of pocket means the juggle for survival and the needs of the work are a constant strain. Luckily we are learning to link in and learn from each other what opportunities and possibilities are available.
Most important SDG
For me they are all important, although I have a special connection to SDG 10 – Reduced Inequality, although I wish it was ‘Enhanced Equity' cause I believe this is really the solution. Let solutions be based on the unique needs of communities, individuals. Equity calls for meeting people where they are and offering organic solutions that can evolve with their unique needs, and environments…enhancing them means that that process is regulated to suit the process. This is how I see development working.
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