15 Dec 2024

MOLEPOLOLE  -  Today we mourn the good old days when Christmas holidays were glazed with some infectious waves of joy and less GBV stories.

Marinated with appeasement and tranquility the festivities were interwoven with sharing and caring all through the family members who will hang around having some mutual fun and generously giving each other a helping hand connoting the love of Lord.

In the recent decades’ vacations of such a top notch has turned into hair-ruffling periods where exists voluminous incidents where people lose their loved ones via break-ups, suicide, homicide etc. Most shamefully, these are usually perpetrated by a close family member mobilised by the so called ‘love-hate’ relationships.

Despite a twist of the vibes music has ever remained a ‘friend indeed’ for generations rousing some pleasant feelings to revellers’ hearts from home to various sectors hosting celebrations such as church, bars, discotheques to list a few.

Music can be used as a multi-bladed panga that can be swung to both educate, entertain and counsel at a go.

As the ‘16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence against women and children’ reached a conclusion BOPA chose to travel an extra mile, as a way to bolster the messages as the festive season is looming, to rope in the issue of music as a weapon of deterrence against the psychosomatic stimuluses that façades these series of GBV cases.

Ms Morwadi Mosenki a Public Health Practitioner who is also the founder and Operations Director of Serenity Rehabilitation Centre gave an elucidation that BOPA saw as wiser to hitch music to be utilised during the festive season as a booster dose to rivet on disseminating GBV messages as music is the most prevailing means of entertainment at this juncture.

“Both music artists and performing artists can be used to effectively deliver messages on GBV through incorporating themes into their lyrics.As usually seen in hip hop and folk music, short stories, stage drama performances, this is one of the effective ways to send the message to people through different genres and music,” she said .

Furthermore, Ms Mosenki advised the government and stakeholders to embark on contracts with artists and engage them in GBV campaigns as artists tend to be crowd pullers, especially for the youth which ultimately means that the more the numbers are reached the more the message is spread.

She sees art, including music, as a therapy that has emotional impact due to its capability pf evoking empathy and a deeper emotional connection to the message.

Like theatre and visual arts, music can reach diverse audiences, she said, adding that on the cultural outlook artists often have a significant influence in communities as they can help normalise conversations about GBV.

Through its creative expression, said Ms Mosenki, music conveys complex messages in accessible and memorable ways and fuel its effectiveness can be derived via collaborations of artists and community leaders thus helping to bolster the messages.

She said music has impactful storytelling and consistent campaigns would ensuremessage resonates and leads to behavioral change, adding that music has a reciprocal stroke between the artist and the audience therefore both parties should play a role

Artists should carry on delivering the messages to the people as they will be moving around the country during the festive season whilst audience should put into action the messages delivered into their ears rather than just dancing to the tunes. ENDS