VALENTINA ACAVA MMAKA

A life for Africa

CHILDREN

Speaking & School Visits

As a writer and intercultural mediator Valentina Acava Mmaka enjoys meeting students, she visit schools, libraries and associations. Her presentations include interactive sessions with a bio of the author and her African life experience, reading from her novels and different activities to stimulate student writing.

With her long experience in African countries she is deeply committed in multicultural issues and her visits are mainly inspired in discussing on themes such as identity, diversity.

CHILDREN

Writing Workshops on how to write a story

Valentina Acava Mmaka also runs writing residency workshops. Valentina visit school classrooms or small groups for a whole week (or once a week for a longer term)) where she takes students through the process of writing a story. Students will learn about voice, hooking the reader, and how to show instead of tell. Together, they will find ideas of what to write, make outlines, write first drafts, revise, write second drafts, and publish. Students will make illustrations and book covers for their work. All final editing of student writing will be presented to parents, teachers and other classes in a public school meeting.

CHILDREN

Tenture! When books were of cloth...

The workshop aims to introduce children to the old times when books, in African Oral Traditional Cultures, were made by cloth. During the workshop, children will choose a traditional story tale (from their background or from other African oral tarditions) and after working on analyzing the different scenes of the story they will represent the whole story on a cloth using natural colours or paper and coloured clothes.

Following the same process, it is possible to create Animated Books, tridimensional big-size books using cartoon, paper, clother, any recycled material.

CHILDREN

African Toys... how to make toys with recyled material.

The workshop aims to introduce children to different ways of playing, building their own toys with recycled material. Through the workshop, that has an intercultural mission, children will know closer the world of African childhood, will become sensitive on environmental awareness and will also be stimulated in their creativity building their own unique toys.

ADULTS

Writing for Children Workshops

Valentina Acava Mmaka runs creative workshops for children's authors aimed at those who have been interested in writing for children, or who have started to develop stories, but are looking for guidance in going further. Workshops are interactive, and involve excercises in opening up creativity, developing your writing in terms of voice, character, and plot, and an opportunity for a great deal of group work and feedback.

ADULTS

Art Therapy- Social Theatre/Writing

Art as a laboratory for intercultural dialogue.

The workshop is a project that aims at improving the educational content of training materials in using social art therapy in adult education, specifically for disadvantaged people and facilitating networking, as well as identification and sharing of good practice in the field of social art therapy used in education. Target groups are potential art therapy facilitators (drama, fine arts, dance and music artists, social workers, teachers, pedagogues, psychotherapists and psychologists involved and to be involved in working with disadvantaged groups, particularly those exposed to violence and social exclusion risks)

The envisaged approach is polyvalent, general and interdisciplinary, particularly employing experimental and interactive methods associated to the creative process. The specifics of training facilitators responds to the need of acquiring knowledge and general theoretical information, further to be adapted to the specific needs of the beneficiaries (that are groups at marginalization or social exclusion risk and/or facing violence). The future facilitators will also acquire practical skills in integrating and using artistic means in the area of creative writing, visual arts, theatre and choreography in the process of assisting the beneficiaries.
Art is an expression of identity, of identities, the most important expression of intercultural dialogue. Art can contribute to the debates on respect and on dialogue between people and cultures