We have long envisioned tapping into Bagamoyo’s talented artist community to support programming for people with diverse abilities, raise awareness, and foster long-term, transcultural connections among artists and community activists dedicated to empowerment and inclusion.
In 2025, we have launched a pilot project to promote the inclusion of students with diverse abilities at Mwambao school through visual arts, dance, and music. Collaborating with artists, supporters, and educators from Bagamoyo in Tanzania, Hamburg and Berlin in Germany, and the Comox Valley in Canada, we initiated a series of workshops within and outside the school to get to know each other, coordinate, and design a regular class program. We exchanged experiences, ideas, and approaches, learning from and with one another.
We helped establish two weekly classes at the special needs class of Mwambao school – one focused on dance, movement, and music, and the other on visual arts, crafts, and vocational skills, starting in August 2025. These courses run weekly, between 3-6 hours/week, and are done by a team of four artists and educators from Bagamoyo, onsite together with the teacher of the special needs class, with regular feedback sessions between the teams in Tanzania, Germany, and Canada.
The program aims to strengthen students with varying physical and cognitive abilities emotionally, socially, creatively, and therapeutically, ensuring each child is included according to their capacity. It also promotes access to local culture and arts and empowers students to learn crafts and skills for future income generation.
Additionally, we aim for the project to be the beginning of an intercultural network of artists, teachers, support workers, and community activists working in inclusion, encouraging exchange and collaboration across continents.