Exciting Opportunities!

Hatnews invites its valuable readers irrespective of their background, be they asylum seekers, refugees, highly-skilled immigrants and/or those from their respective native lands who may be journalists, creative writers, poets, authors or anyone with a keen interest in writing or art/photography to freely send in their submissions for publication on our site.

We are also looking for individuals interested in developing their;

-    News gathering and reporting skills through training in community media
-    Writing skills by publishing online, articles, stories and poems
-    Oral communication skills through live internet radio broadcasting

HAT News aims :

• to be a catalyst for exhibition of any unpublished works in art and literature
• to harmonise understanding of diverse cultures, history and heritage.
• to promote sharing of information and ideas
• to motivate interest in writing
• to give prominence to the voices and skills of marginalised individuals or groups
• translate various experiences into concrete social change

Interested?

Please the editor on [email protected] or e-mail Kenneth Mawomo on [email protected]
Visit our website at: www.hatnews.org for the latest news updates from around the world.

Be part of this life-changing experience!!

Writing School Leicester Bursaries

Writing School Leicester  has a small pot of  Writing East Midlands funding especially to support attendance on Writing School Leicester courses over the current year to July.  Applicants need to be already writing, demonstrating ability and commitment, and probably from BME, disabled, refugee or asylum communities or, because of their personal circumstances, would otherwise benefit from this support.

A Poet Called Mercy

Thirty One year old Mercy Moige Mecha was born in Kenya to a family of eight where the only two forms of entertainment available to them were reading or occasionally listening to ‘Play of the Week‘ or stories on BBC radio. Her parents brought them books from school libraries of the schools they worked at and due to their insatiable appetites enrolled in the local library.

“That words could create such endless vistas, had me mesmerised for years(even now) and I became addicted to books to such an extent that I was banned from reading in school and my mother even confiscated the library cards so that we could not borrow books. I hid books under my skirts, read under torchlight and with my sister we pilfered books from the local library and picked those that the library threw away,” revealed Mercy.

The story Teller

She began ‘weaving’ stories of her own before she could write and even came up with her own secret language and under the table club where they took turns telling stories with three of her younger siblings.

At eight she took her first creative writing class, which she enjoyed so greatly that when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she claimed with pride, ‘An Authoress’.

At fourteen she began to experiment with poetry after reading Lord Alfred Tennyson and that same year she won the language prize for her form.When she was seventeen she wrote her first Novel under lamplight ‘The lady of Flowers’  which when she gave it to her eldest  brother (whom she considered a literary giant) for his appraisal he said it was trash and for years she became a closet writer.

Education

Mercy wanted to study creative writing at the university but was compelled by her parents to do something that would earn her a living. She then pursued a degree in education with majors in English and Literature. She kept on writing all those years.

Work

Mercy taught at two International Schools where she initiated Journalists and writers clubs and produced a journal and school magazine. She developed an interest in children’s literature, writing stories for her class to explicate  what it meant to operate in a creative realm.

Post teaching-writing aspirations

In 2007, Mercy left teaching and her ambition was to join a creative writing course, in the United States as this would give her time to polish her work but this was not to be. So she spent time as a freelance TEFL tutor, fashion consultant cum entrepreneur and freelance writer. She initiated a writing group in Mombasa, initially intended to be a Women’s Writers Forum but ended up being inclusive and later called  ‘Angalau Pwani.

United Kingdom

It was a dream to be a writer that brought Mercy to the UK. She was admitted into the University of East Anglia Creative writing MA( poetry) and left after one month as it was  not meeting what she needed to grow as a writer. She moved to Northampton, where she is part of the Northampton Writers group and on the way to having her short stories and some of her poetry published in their literary journal.

Mercy will in September 2009 be pursuing Writing for Children(MA) at Winchester University.

TraveI

Mercy loves to travel and has travelled all over East Africa and has been to Sweden , Belgium. Her ambition is to travel all over the world.

Zimbabwean Rastafarian And Artist; Masimba Musodza

Whilst the deterioration of Zimbabwean political, social and economic landscapes has seen many Zimbabweans flee home, most Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have exploited their long absence from home in advancing and sharpening their various skills.

One such is Masimba Musodza, a Zimbabwean Rastafarian and Artist. Born in 1976, Musodza’s artistic muscles stretch as far back as during his primary school days during which he made worthy contributions in the school magazine. This culminated in his written works appearing in The New Generation; a youths newspaper run by a Jamaican born Ben Hanson.
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On Musodza’s education and career belts hang his degree in Media Studies in addition to other qualifications and experience in Screen Writing and Directing, Filmmaking and Research work , which he earned from reputable institutions like Edgar Langeveldt’s Nexus Talent Agency, the African Script Development Fund, the Zimbabwe International Film Festival and the Raindance Institute in the United Kingdom.

Musodza is now a reputable author and has so far given birth to a collection of short stories written between 1997-2000., a must read for all Zimbabweans. Entitled ‘The Man Who Turned Into Rastafarian’, Musodza articulately reveals the typical life of a Rastafarian in Zimbabwe. The book is available for sale online. A brief outline of the book is available on Musodza’s website; www.masimbamusodza.com

He also has a number of upcoming novels and screenplays. To be published soon is his ChiShona language novel that explores the perceived connection between Zimbabwean mythology and that of ancient Mesopotamia while drawing attention to the rise in incidents of child sexual abuse.

Zimbabweans of the likes of Musodza are highly commended for rising and surviving against an environment which does not tolerate their opinion and values as a religious sect. Musodza, as a Rastafarian is firm and principled. He is a disciple of Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo, who advocates African languages for African people (http://lists.kabissa.org/pipermail/a12n-forum/msg00553.html ) It is against this background that Musodza on his website spells his name in the Ethiopian script, the same language he uses for reading the Bible. Musodza effectively exploits color, image and motion on his website; www.masimbamusodza.com to say all about his Rastafarian religion. And he greets the visitors to his website with his photos where he wears his long dreadlocks.

In Zimbabwe, it is not only opposition political activists who are the targets of intolerance by Mugabe’s regime. Some religions such as Rastafarian with its accompanying symbols in the form of dreadlocks, other dress codes and a unique form of language in communicating and greetings are often a subject of misconception, suspicion, ridicule, discrimination and exclusion from employment, education etc. They also face harassment by state authorities or other societal groups. On this note, it is imperative to highlight that Musodza does not smoke weed (mbanje) and actually is against its use.

In October 2007, a Zimbabwean 8 year old school boy, Farai Benjamin Dzvova made headlines in the media circles when Ruvheneko School authorities expelled the boy from school for wearing dreadlocks. This was after a series of unjustified punishments which included locking him up in solitary confinement or ordering him to sit on the floor. The same year 3 members of the Zimbabwean cricket team were ordered to cut off their dreadlocks during the Cricket world cup finals.

All these cases abound against the background that the country’s self imposed first lady, Grace Mugabe wears dreadlocks. Which to us implies that Mugabe himself admires them. It thus becomes a mockery that the institutions which he governs will not tolerate dreadlocks as a dress code, labeling those who wear them as drug abusers and hooligans who are up to unnecessarily raising a ruckus.

Also facing discrimination are the gays in Zimbabwe. Many Zimbabweans from varying walks of life are gay and many more are realizing and accepting that they are gay but because they face ridicule, scorn and persecution, they do not always come out in the open, opting to practice it behind the scenes. As a result some gay Zimbabweans have been forced to flee home to seek refuge in lands were gays are tolerated such as in South Africa and other western worlds.- Bleeding BritaVoice

For more on the Musodza works, please google onto his website;
www.masimbamusodza.com

An invitation for contributions

By Elisha Shamba

Our inner strengths, experiences, and truths cannot be lost, destroyed, or taken away. Every person has an inborn worth and can contribute to the human community.
Read more