Isitimela Sendaba at the NAF

Yvette Hardie

Collaboration between ASSITEJ SA and Play Africa presents Isitimela Sendaba at the virtual National Arts Festival.

  Eleven storytellers bring a daily dose of African stories to engage and delight.

  Since March 2020, Play Africa and ASSITEJ South Africa have collaborated on a new virtual storytelling platform for children. The platform provides the professional development of emerging artists, while empowering them to give back to the children in the community through oral storytelling. 

  This collaboration is now a popular feature on Facebook Live every Tuesday afternoon, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown regulations. 

  This programme helps children develop imagination and literacy skills while staying safe at home.

  In this newly designed production, Isitimela Sendaba, 11 storytellers from across Africa share their best stories with young audiences. Hosted by professional storytellers, Thembile Tshuma and Tsholofelo Shouyane, these stories amuse and delight 5-10 year olds.

  Thobekile Mbanda’s story Latozi and her Uhadi is a tribute to one of the featured artists on the vNAF, the extraordinary Madosini, whose virtual musical virtuosity and storytelling skills are legendary. Other South African storytellers on the programme include Sizwe Vilakazi, Baeletsi Tsatsi, Mfundo Hashe, Busisiwe Radebe and Thando Mkhoyi. 

  From across Africa storytellers will include John Namai (Kenya), Gertrude Vimbayi Munhamo (Zimbabwe) Veronique Mensah (Namibia) and Oluwaseun ‘Aunty Shine-Shine’ Odukoya (Nigeria).

  The stories are performed live via Zoom with a new storyteller delivering a story each day of the vNAF. Those wishing to view the stories will need to register for each event by visiting the v NAF website or clicking this link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUucequrTgpH9ykJ–bjlou5GrijyyKC7CT.

  Stories from the Play Africa and ASSITEJ SA collaboration which have previously been aired live are available on https://playafrica.org.za/kids/.