Interview with Florence Kirubi Florence Kirubi is a teacher, educationalist, drama writer and director based in Nairobi, Kenya. She was trained in Teaching, Communication, Leadership and Counseling. She has worked extensively with people in numerous community-based activities in rural and urban Kenya. She has also worked in several other places outside Kenya, including other African countries, Europe, Jamaica and Japan. How did you get involved in doing theatre and community work? I was trained as a teacher and became a classroom teacher for 16 years. During the time I also involved myself with drama, even though it was very negligible …

Interview with Andrei Sever Bârzan, Andreea Eșanu and Alice Monica Marinescu “I’m not ashamed to work. We all have the right to work to make ends meet. I wash toilets and I also teach. I’m working, not loitering! And besides, I like working with children. I’ve always loved them.” In 2007, the story of Rodica Sandu – a cleaning lady at Telec school in Bicazu Ardelean – was hyped up by the media, who emphasized the degradation of the education system. Rodica Sandu began teaching English at the school where half the teaching hours were available after she passed the …

Interview with Irina Vacarciuc CasaM is a theater performance dealing with the lives of women who have been victims of domestic violence in The Republic of Moldova. The performance developed from interviews conducted with women from villages across the country, it premiered in 2010 in Chișinău and it was staged in over 40 villages and small towns in Moldova. The cast is made up of Snejana Puica, Mihaela Strâmbeanu, Ina Surdu, Irina Vacarciuc, directed by Luminița Țîcu. I talked to Irina Vacarciuc, an actress on the independent scene, about the performance and the interaction with an audience unfamiliar with theater …

Interview with Hilda Twongyeirwe How did it all start with FEMRITE, the Ugandan Women Writers’ Association? The association started from a need to give women writers in Uganda visibility and space to write. During that time, there were very few women writers and even those few writers were not really recognized in mainstream writing. That is how we started to promote women writers and to create more women writers through training workshops. Our main activity is to train women in creative writing skills and to provide space for them to write. We however have writing programs where we also consider …