By
Andrew Mulenga
Livingstone
is well known for its most popular natural wonder, the Victoria Falls, but last
Saturday the town’s main street came to a standstill as a manmade-wonder, the
massive wire and steel rod sculpture of an Elephant was hauled through during
the commemoration of the World Lion’s Day that was subsequently trailed by the
World Elephant Day on Monday.
Almakio Banda (squating) and Alexis Phiri of Kachere Art Studios are joined by pupils at the Green Elly Sculpture during the World Elephants Day in Livingstone |
Although Green Elly was in the procession, her allegiance stretches far beyond commemorating wildlife days. Green Elly is here first and foremost to eat, because she is hungry, very hungry but unlike other elephants she does not eat leaves, fruit and grass, she feeds on plastic, anything plastic but particularly plastic bags and bottles.
She was built by artists of the Kachere Art Studios, as part of their Funta-Funta Art Project – loosely translated as "crazy art” – at their Think Green Laboratory in Livingstone and she is a prop for their worldwide environmental education activities and exhibitions who’s main objective is to create a green generation by encouraging conservation, tree planting, environmental awareness and recycling.
Green Elly is currently positioned on the Civic Centre lawns near the Livingstone Museum, on a space generously provided by the Livingstone City Council where like her distant cousins the Rhino near Long Acres Roundabout in Lusaka and the Nyami Nyami in Siavonga also built by Kachere, she will be stuffed with plastic waste generated before, during and after the forthcoming UNWTO general assembly, an exercise Kachere hopes will help to educate the community on the dangers plastic poses to the environment, besides promoting tourism once completed.
Green Elly is transported to the Livingstone Civic Centre grounds in a procession during the World Lions Day last Saturday |
It is also visualized that
through “Donate your plastic litter to feed the Green Elly” campaign – as it is
being called – visitors to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls which include
schools, the community and tourists “will claim ownership through participation
and consequently inspire ourselves to think clean green beyond the UNWTO –
other than it becoming a tourist attraction only.”
Kachere as an arts outfit is
ran in the pseudo-traditional village concept and has a Mfumu (chief) and Ndunas
(village elders or wise men) and according to the Mfumu, Alexis Phiri, the team has been collecting litter from the
airport, hotels, restaurants, townships, Victoria Falls and the city dumpsite
known as Marabo – a colloquial play
on the word “rubbish”.
The Mfumu also claims that the team has litter collected from former US
presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr’s recent entourages to Zambia
waiting to go into the belly of Green Elly. There is also “donations” of litter
from Grant Cumings, whose family runs two properties, Chiawa and Old Mondoro,
in Zambia's Lower Zambezi National Park. Cumings will provide a truck load of
plastics donated by the various camps in the region. And on Thursday, Green
Enviro-watch donated litter from their on-going workshop that goes under the
theme “promoting environmental tourism”.
Kachere is currently in talks
with the National Heritage Conservation Commission’s South West Region
management for permission to place bins made from soft steel and wire at the
entrance to the falls.
It appears with every new
project, Kachere’s passion towards conservation increases and the hope to do
something bigger. Besides the Rhino and the Nyami Nyami – which is still a work
in progress – the team was part of the COP17 African Caravan of Hope in 2011
along with other ecological activists and were very militant during the Durban
Conference trying to breakdown the conference jargon into simpler terms that
the average person on the street can understand.
What's more, the last seven
years have been a journey of educating everyday Zambians on climate change so
much that one can safely say they are the country’s most aggressive art
collective when it comes to environmental awareness with their Funta-Funta brand of art.
Last year alone, they conducted
a three day environmental entrepreneurship and arts training workshop in
collaboration with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) for women and
children at the Naluyanda Integrated Development Organization (NIDO) as well as
environmental awareness lessons with children from the infamously menacing
Chibolya shanty compound in Lusaka.
During last year’s Christmas season;
working with homeless children they descended on a dumpsite at Lusaka’s Kamwala
market where they turned trash into decorations to adorn a tree that is normally
used as a urinal. During such sessions the team calls on passers-by and
preaching the ecological gospel, as should be expected at Livingstone’s Green
Elly for the next few weeks, if not months.
It took 22 grown men to load the massive sculpture on and off a truck |
Key among the preachers is
long-time climate change crusader and wastepaper artist
Almakio Banda, a former
Kabulonga Girls teacher who is currently applying his art teaching skills to a
different cause. Banda, also a Kachere Nduna
who was the head artist during the construction of Green Elly was on site during
the Elephant Day commemoration randomly calling on passers-by, many of whom were
surprisingly enthusiastic.
And on Thursday Banda and Phiri
were again on site educating the first fifty or so delegates of the expected
100 delegates of the Green Enviro-watch workshop.
Nevertheless Green Elly’s frame
took a combined team of about eight artists including Sydney Njovu, Martin
Phiri, Posie Phiri, Cornelius Banda, Livingstone-based Zig Zag and skilled
workers four months to complete. Her frame is so sturdy she can hold up to four
adults on her back at a go and she took 22 grown men to load her on and off the
truck that carried her from the art studio to the Civic Centre.
In about a week’s time, the
feeding of Green Elly will commence and the likely VIPs to kick start the cause
are Minister of Tourism and Arts, Sylvia Masebo and the republican second lady
Charlotte Scott.
Others are, The Lowdown, Horizon
Education Trust of Turkey (Lusaka - Zambia), Fr. Dominic – Livingstone, Food
Palace (Livingstone), Jolly Boys Backpackers and His Worship the Mayor of
Lusaka, Daniel Chisenga.
Special thanks also go to
Matt Morley of Game Rangers International
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