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Yeukai Karengezeka

Arts Correspondent

It’s a week away from Christmas and already jingle bells are ringing all the way.

With schools closed, some children have already gone to the rural areas for holidays, visiting their grandparents while others are still in town waiting for events to happen.

In line with the spirit of the festive season, Children Performing Arts Workshop (Chipawo) will offer an early Christmas present to arts lovers today at Theatre in the Park.

The annual Christmas show will feature a special play called “Mbimbindoga”.

In an interview, with Youth Interactive, Chipawo manager, Chipo Basopo said they were looking forward to having a great show and urged people to come in their numbers.

“We are raring to go. This a play never to miss we are calling children, youths, and even parents to come and enjoy the play in their numbers as we start to celebrate Christmas,” she said.

She said the play is meant to teach children the essence of Christmas to the family and the community at large.

Basopo said the play reminds people of the goodness of Christmas, something that must be refreshing .

“The play was adapted from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It is about a selfish man who is against Christmas and the goodness it brings.

“Through flashbacks, he is reminded of being kind and the goodness of Christmas.”Basopo said the year 2022 was fantastic and as they resumed activities that had been affected by the Covid-19 lockdown.

In August, they successfully held the Southern African Festival (SAFE) in Harare.

Chipawo launched its first edition of the festival with the theme “We made it” in 2019.

The first edition saw the attendance of children from CHIPABO (Children Performing Arts Association of Botswana), CHIEZA (Children Exposure in Zambia) and CHINAMIBIA (Children of Namibia) and Malawi.

Due to the pandemic, the second edition was held online in 2020 with the theme “Making it together” as it showcased work produced during the lockdown and a flashback from Chipawo archives.

Chipawo this year headlined the Day of The African Child celebrations.

They put up top-notch performances.

The day is celebrated every June 16 to remember about 10 000 South African black school children who marched to protest the poor quality of their education and demanded to be taught in their mother language.

In 2016,Chipawo, in celebrating Mother Language Day, made a Shona adaptation of a Spanish play.

The children sought to promote linguistic diversity, multilingual education and give children the freedom of expression in their mother tongue.

Established in 1989, Chipawo is an arts education for development and employment trust, which works with children and young people in child development.