The Pemba project is a resource package for teachers consists of 12 full-colour, A3-size posters of works by George Pemba, the late South African artist, and a set of four activity/lesson manuals. These materials are backed up by a training workshop in which teachers are given hands-on activities to acquaint themselves with the material, and learn ways of using it in the classroom.

The materials aim to motivate South African teachers and learners to develop a heightened interest in arts and culture and to make teachers aware of how a cross-curricular approach to education can use arts and culture as an introduction to all areas of learning. Arts and Culture is a compulsory subject for Grades 1 to 9 in South African schools, introduced since the end of the apartheid government. The apartheid legacy means that many teachers now required to teach art as a subject have not been taught art themselves.

This resource is intended as part of supporting education in the new South Africa and equipping teachers with skills to teach arts and culture, with examples of indigenous artists. Teachers and learners acquired: basic art skills; examples of activities using found objects and materials from their immediate environment; and an introduction to topics such as acceptance of others' views and cultures, co-existence and moral values.

The publishers say, “Pemba is now recognised as being among the greatest of South African artists, but he languished in neglect for many years, ignored by the arts establishment and unknown to the vast majority of his compatriots. The Pemba project is a means of helping to redress that omission.”

English