IMG_4417 smBy Zimkhitha Mlanzeli

When you spend your days working on other people’s writing, calling beneficiaries to check whether they have received their books and to remind them to send in their feedback, creating and writing up course material for workshops or even facilitating a workshop, then you hardly have time for your number one love: writing.

A lot of writers, who have full-time jobs, struggle to find the time or be in the creative space to write. So their stories go untold and the craft unpractised.

So, when Sandra Hill offered a creative writing workshop for the FunDza staff, we just couldn’t say no. Most of our staff are writers who have very little time to work on their own writing, so having the opportunity to get those creative juices flowing is such a joy.

Sandra ran the workshop at our offices. We invited some of our long-standing young Fanz writers to join us too. As students with demanding university schedules, they felt they also needed to “find the voices” again. But they got out way more than they bargained for.

Sandra has a talent for getting you to think about and write about those things you would have never thought could make stories. The titles of the sessions ranged from: I am (where you had to write about what kind of person you are), she/he who dreams of (well that speaks for itself), she/he who always and she/he who loves…

And then there was an exercise about writing about a memory of when we were younger. We were asked to vividly describe the view from our childhood home. It was refreshing to be able to think back and open your mind’s eye to those things you thought you had forgotten. The free writing was intense, so it was a lovely relief when the session took a turn and become an art class. We had to draw, with our left hands, the memories of food or an eating occasion we remembered. That was fun for all.

But the favourite exercise was the poetry. We were given a prompt “I am from” and had to write anything that came to mind. Then we had to pick the phrases that we liked the most from our writing, write them on pieces of paper and paste them on fresh paper. What came out of that was pure creative genius from our staff.

We learned a lot and look forward to working more with Sandra in the future.

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