Drumming For Deliverance

The Association de soutien pour les opprimmés (ASO) is a Search for Common Ground partner who we’ve trained and worked with extensively. ASO is made up of former child soldiers and survivors of violence among others. They use the arts for self-expression and healing and recently performed at the General Referral Hospital of Panzi in Bukavu…

ASO Drummers perform on the Panzi Hospital

BUKAVU, 7 January 2011 (IRIN) – Slapped into submission by a child soldier, a man thanks the gunmen who have just raped his wife and daughter, now bedraggled and whimpering. Dozens of women in a large circle observe the harrowing scene. But this is theatre – as therapy.

The “stage” is the grounds of the General Referral Hospital of Panzi, in Bukavu, capital of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province, a facility that specializes in treating survivors of sexual violence, of whom there are a very large number in eastern DRC, where rape is widely used as a weapon by warring groups.

The performance brings together both survivors and perpetrators of extreme violence.

One Panzi patient, Celeste*, 48, recalled her traumatic experience: “I was tilling the field when four fighters approached me and told me they were going to kill me. I said, ‘Please don’t kill me, I’m like your mother, I have children like you,’ but they didn’t listen and they raped me.”

The “actors” include Joseph, who at the age of six joined the Mai-Mai, the collective name for numerous eastern Congolese militia groups. “When you are in an armed group, you are forced to do horrible things,” he told IRIN.

“You’re forced, even though you’re a child, to do bad things because of orders from your commander. You’re told to find young girls for your commander … and you see how they treat people, how they kill them, torture them and these things I wouldn’t want other children to do,” he said.

“I took part in a massacre, where a lot of children were killed. I had to participate because I was under orders from my commander. I was ordered to participate, so I did. When I think about it I become very upset,” he added.

When he was demobilized five years ago, Joseph joined the Association de soutien pour les opprimmés (ASO), a group of musicians, actors, singers, dancers and drummers comprising former child soldiers, survivors of violence, witchcraft suspects and street children.

The aim, according to ASO coordinator Juvenal Muderhwa, is to help people move on from violence and trauma.

“When I started psychosocial activities, we found that the cultural activities such as music and theatre could help the youth start over, forget what they lived through and rediscover their culture,” he explained.

Drumming, dancing, singing and performing are Joseph’s therapy. “Now that I’ve become an artist, I use art to calm my emotions and deal with the past,” he said.

*Not her real name

Read the rest of the article here.

More photos from the event:

Who else is using music and performance for peace?