Artists, CSOs partner to fight corruption

By Abou Kisige

Artists and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have embarked on a joint project to sensitize the community against the rampant corruption in the country.

The initiative will require several artists to come up with songs, poems, essays and plays in relation to the corruption.

The project code named; “Anti-corruption performing arts festival” is funded by Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) supported by the Actionaid International Uganda (AIU).

It is organized under the theme; ‘Corruption, obstacle to progress, I can stop it, turn on your song, turn off corruption.”

While launching the one month program in Gulu town on Friday, the Programme Officer Governance of AAU, Timothy Kabaale, said the festival aims at highlighting effects of corruption on access to service delivery and mobilize citizens to denounce and fight the vice.

“The festival is concentrating on performing arts like drama, songs, poetry and essay competitions to mobilize citizens and build the necessary critical mass to take the anti-corruption fight to another level,” Kabaale said.

He said the approach provides a means of mass communication whose impact plays out daily in our words as evident in the emerging terminology of speech, behavior and mannerisms.

Some of the Artists who turned up for the competition during the launch of the Anticorruption performing arts festival at Kaunda Grounds recently. PHOTO: Abou Kisige

“This is the idea behind conceptualization of well documented theatre, poetry, essays and singing to document citizen’s experiences of corruption in Uganda”, Kabaale said.

The event will be help in different regions of the country including Eastern and Northern regions among others. The festival will be crowned by a grand finale in Kampala where the best contestants will be announced.

A renowned Northern region artist, Lucky Otim aka Bosmic said the messages in the music and theatre can easily be consumed by both literates and illiterates. 

“Music reaches out to a wider audience. I believe that with these anti-graft messages, we can attain a collective action against the vice,” Otim said.

Lawrence Opokomere of Kings Entertainment Kumi district doing the reknowned You amd Me Anti-Corruption song during the launch

The campaign intends to select out the best 12 songs and five poems for better productions to be used in the subsequent anti-corruption campaigns.

AAU and partners have undertaken a series of campaigns first as citizens of Uganda, actors in the development processes and as part of the intelligentsia with a development agenda for a better Uganda.

Initiatives like Black Monday, the Ant-Corruption Caravan, Citizen Barazas at Sub-County and District, Youth Parliaments, protests, dialogues and petitions at different levels have contributed to the fight against graft.