Last weekend in Buea, I had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop through STAGE LIFE in collaboration with House of Peace for Trust, alongside Poet Noa Inkman, bringing together young spoken word artists to explore how they can use their art to respond to social issues. For me, the workshop was an opportunity to ask a simple but important question: what happens when you begin to see your art as more than just art?
You already have a voice. You already have the ability to make people listen, feel, question, and reflect. But what are you doing with that voice? During my session, I challenged the young artists to think about spoken word as a tool for strengthening trust and building peace within our communities. Because your words don’t exist in isolation. Every poem you write carries an idea. Every story you tell shapes perception. Every performance has the potential to make someone rethink something they thought they already understood.
In communities where trust has been damaged by conflict, fear, misinformation, prejudice, and our inability to understand one another, your voice can become part of the solution. You don’t always need a huge platform, a political position, or an institutional title to contribute to peace. Sometimes, you simply need the courage to tell a different story. You can use your poem to humanize the person your audience has been taught to fear. You can tell a story that makes someone pause before judging another person. You can create work that encourages dialogue instead of hostility and speak about difficult realities without turning people into enemies.
As an artist, you have something incredibly powerful: people’s attention. They will sit quietly and listen to you speak. They will feel with you. They will remember your words. That is an opportunity, but it is also a responsibility. The question isn’t whether your art will influence people; in some way, it probably will. The more important question is what kind of influence you want it to have.
I left the workshop thinking about this as much as I hope the participants did. Perhaps the work of building peace doesn’t only happen in conference rooms and political spaces. Perhaps it also happens on stages, in studios, through poems, songs, films, stories, and conversations. Perhaps it happens whenever a creative chooses to use their work to help people understand one another a little better.
You have a voice. You have a story. You have an audience. What will you do with them?
🎥 Workshop Media Highlights
- Summary Video of the Workshop
A short recap capturing key moments and highlights from our “Strengthening Trust Through Spoken Word” workshop.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EsDFZMuxm/?mibextid=wwXIfr - Trainee Poetry Readings
Excerpts from poetry readings presented by our trainees following the workshop’s practical session, showcasing how they applied the concepts and tools explored during the training.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1B98BkMcSR/?mibextid=wwXIfr
