when I grew up my parents wanted me to
start playing an instrument so I chose
the piano I was super excited and I
started going to my lessons but then
after a few years I didn’t want to play
piano anymore I wanted to sing and I’m
wondering why was that today I am part
of a feminist group here in Mozambique
called the divas the Divas is a band but
in addition to playing music we carry
out social work in and outside of Maputo
and this year we’re gonna host Africa’s
first all-girls rock camp we want equip
girls with the tools to overcome the
obstacles that face girls who challenge
existing gender roles in Mozambique
today one of the girls in the Divas is
Amelia she’s our drummer
Amelia grew up here in Maputo in Milani
and she told me that when she was little
her father used to say to her Amelia you
are so strong that if you were a man you
could have become anything you want in
this world we want to teach girls to
express themselves and give them the
confidence to dare speak their minds and
this is important because a study done
on body language at Columbia and
Berkeley University shows that females
and girls are less likely to take up
space both physically and mentally so
what we want to do is create a safe
space where girls can say do and be what
they want and we want to encourage them
to continue doing this even outside of
this safe space could be at home at
school with friends or anywhere in life
so back to why I stopped playing the
piano I’ve thought a lot about it over
the years and I’ve come to the
conclusion that when I was growing up I
never saw a girl rock star
the piano I never saw a girl Rockstar
play any instruments all I saw was
beautiful girls with long hair and tiny
clothes singing and dancing on TV so I
think that if I had seen a girl play an
instrument as a kid maybe I would have
continued doing it myself because when
you are small you need role models you
need someone to look up to and something
to aspire to but what about Amelia she’s
a drummer how did that happened well
when I marry Amelia I was little she saw
them with some vacant drummer Stelio
money lolly on the TV and she’s like
whoa
that’s amazing and then a few years
later she saw him live and then she was
like okay I have to learn how to do that
so she went to music crossroads the
music school were both she and I work
now and she signed up for drum lessons
so in some ways you can say that Amelia
was a bit more badass than I was but
what can we do for the girls who are not
as badass as Amelia well we think that a
good way to go about it is through
groups such as the Divas so I am here in
Mozambique on a cultural exchange and I
work in an organization called music
crossroads and they have a music school
here and with some bacon and the Divas
originated at music crossroads and they
were founded as a strategy to recruit
more female students to the Academy so
by showing girls and women playing music
they hope to recruit more female
students and this is very important work
that they started doing and you may ask
why well can someone in the room name a
female drummer exactly
yeah Amelia but the girls wanted to do
more than just play they wanted to reach
out to young girls in their region so
I’m here through a Norwegian
organization called JM Norway and JM
Norway has a project called loud girls
rock camp and ever since this exchange
started music crossroads the divas they
wanted to do something like that here in
Mozambique so we sat down and we made a
strategy on how to implement it here
because Norway Mozambique can be
different in some aspects
so our pedagogy is that nothing is wrong
we want to create an open and safe space
where girls can explore and express
themselves we want to have a low
threshold and a high sense of
achievement and the way we go about this
is through music and the reason we do
that is because if you want to teach
someone to express themselves and take
up space music is a good way because
that is what music is all about
expressing showing something we also
mean that culture and arts is a very
important aspect of our society that we
have to take seriously so if we have the
opportunity to teach someone to play
music we should and these are girls who
would most likely not learn it anywhere
else we also talk to the girls about
feminism gender equality and norm
critique we want to equip them not only
with the confidence but with the
knowledge to go out and become the
wonderful young girls that they already
are and this may all seem good and well
but what are we doing what are our
results well this year in February we
started a pilot for the girls Rock camp
we went out to two primary schools in
two townships here in Maputo and we
taught girls to play instruments we had
debates went game
and it has been a really nice experience
both for us in the Divas but also for
the girls who are teaching and so we
wanted to make the project grow we
applied for some funding and we got it
and now we are gonna host Africa’s first
all-girls Rock Camp loud which we are
really excited about but to me the
clearest sign of our success is a few
weeks ago we were sitting outside a
school in my fella where we’re teaching
we were eating some Falcon bhajiya which
I’m sure you guys know what is and the
week before we had taught the girls or
we had made a song together with the
girls called Amiga and this week that
continued playing and playing an
instrument slowly slowly but surely and
as we are sitting there there’s this
little girl younger than the girls we
are teaching she’s walking around the
schoolyard she’s looking at us from time
to time we try and look back and smile
but she’s shy so she she looks away but
we can see that she’s singing something
so she comes closer and closer and then
finally we heard here that the song
she’s singing is Amiga the song that the
older girls had made so we all started
singing and playing together with her
and it was a really nice moment and that
to me shows that we have achieved what
we want to do we want to create role
models not only the role models you see
on TV but the ones who are in your
immediate surroundings so the older
girls that our school had become role
models for this girl and that was really
nice and lastly I want to say to you all
that it is important that we encourage
all the girls in our surroundings to be
rock stars in every aspect of their
lives thank you very much
[Applause]
Oh
start playing an instrument so I chose
the piano I was super excited and I
started going to my lessons but then
after a few years I didn’t want to play
piano anymore I wanted to sing and I’m
wondering why was that today I am part
of a feminist group here in Mozambique
called the divas the Divas is a band but
in addition to playing music we carry
out social work in and outside of Maputo
and this year we’re gonna host Africa’s
first all-girls rock camp we want equip
girls with the tools to overcome the
obstacles that face girls who challenge
existing gender roles in Mozambique
today one of the girls in the Divas is
Amelia she’s our drummer
Amelia grew up here in Maputo in Milani
and she told me that when she was little
her father used to say to her Amelia you
are so strong that if you were a man you
could have become anything you want in
this world we want to teach girls to
express themselves and give them the
confidence to dare speak their minds and
this is important because a study done
on body language at Columbia and
Berkeley University shows that females
and girls are less likely to take up
space both physically and mentally so
what we want to do is create a safe
space where girls can say do and be what
they want and we want to encourage them
to continue doing this even outside of
this safe space could be at home at
school with friends or anywhere in life
so back to why I stopped playing the
piano I’ve thought a lot about it over
the years and I’ve come to the
conclusion that when I was growing up I
never saw a girl rock star
the piano I never saw a girl Rockstar
play any instruments all I saw was
beautiful girls with long hair and tiny
clothes singing and dancing on TV so I
think that if I had seen a girl play an
instrument as a kid maybe I would have
continued doing it myself because when
you are small you need role models you
need someone to look up to and something
to aspire to but what about Amelia she’s
a drummer how did that happened well
when I marry Amelia I was little she saw
them with some vacant drummer Stelio
money lolly on the TV and she’s like
whoa
that’s amazing and then a few years
later she saw him live and then she was
like okay I have to learn how to do that
so she went to music crossroads the
music school were both she and I work
now and she signed up for drum lessons
so in some ways you can say that Amelia
was a bit more badass than I was but
what can we do for the girls who are not
as badass as Amelia well we think that a
good way to go about it is through
groups such as the Divas so I am here in
Mozambique on a cultural exchange and I
work in an organization called music
crossroads and they have a music school
here and with some bacon and the Divas
originated at music crossroads and they
were founded as a strategy to recruit
more female students to the Academy so
by showing girls and women playing music
they hope to recruit more female
students and this is very important work
that they started doing and you may ask
why well can someone in the room name a
female drummer exactly
yeah Amelia but the girls wanted to do
more than just play they wanted to reach
out to young girls in their region so
I’m here through a Norwegian
organization called JM Norway and JM
Norway has a project called loud girls
rock camp and ever since this exchange
started music crossroads the divas they
wanted to do something like that here in
Mozambique so we sat down and we made a
strategy on how to implement it here
because Norway Mozambique can be
different in some aspects
so our pedagogy is that nothing is wrong
we want to create an open and safe space
where girls can explore and express
themselves we want to have a low
threshold and a high sense of
achievement and the way we go about this
is through music and the reason we do
that is because if you want to teach
someone to express themselves and take
up space music is a good way because
that is what music is all about
expressing showing something we also
mean that culture and arts is a very
important aspect of our society that we
have to take seriously so if we have the
opportunity to teach someone to play
music we should and these are girls who
would most likely not learn it anywhere
else we also talk to the girls about
feminism gender equality and norm
critique we want to equip them not only
with the confidence but with the
knowledge to go out and become the
wonderful young girls that they already
are and this may all seem good and well
but what are we doing what are our
results well this year in February we
started a pilot for the girls Rock camp
we went out to two primary schools in
two townships here in Maputo and we
taught girls to play instruments we had
debates went game
and it has been a really nice experience
both for us in the Divas but also for
the girls who are teaching and so we
wanted to make the project grow we
applied for some funding and we got it
and now we are gonna host Africa’s first
all-girls Rock Camp loud which we are
really excited about but to me the
clearest sign of our success is a few
weeks ago we were sitting outside a
school in my fella where we’re teaching
we were eating some Falcon bhajiya which
I’m sure you guys know what is and the
week before we had taught the girls or
we had made a song together with the
girls called Amiga and this week that
continued playing and playing an
instrument slowly slowly but surely and
as we are sitting there there’s this
little girl younger than the girls we
are teaching she’s walking around the
schoolyard she’s looking at us from time
to time we try and look back and smile
but she’s shy so she she looks away but
we can see that she’s singing something
so she comes closer and closer and then
finally we heard here that the song
she’s singing is Amiga the song that the
older girls had made so we all started
singing and playing together with her
and it was a really nice moment and that
to me shows that we have achieved what
we want to do we want to create role
models not only the role models you see
on TV but the ones who are in your
immediate surroundings so the older
girls that our school had become role
models for this girl and that was really
nice and lastly I want to say to you all
that it is important that we encourage
all the girls in our surroundings to be
rock stars in every aspect of their
lives thank you very much
[Applause]
Oh
Please follow and like us: