Once a vibrant part of the Soweto arts scene, the Funda Centre has had to adapt. Swapna Prabhakaran finds out how
It is a sad fact that Soweto’s Funda Centre is better known internationally than it is in Johannesburg. The once-famous centre for literacy and the arts has transformed in the Nineties to become a community college, but its heritage lies unnoticed by a large number of locals.
Next week Funda will merge with five other institutions that espouse the same commitment to teaching and development to form a Soweto Education and Training Consortium (Sowetco). The consortium aims to provide a range of training services to the Sowetan community.
This place of learning began as a community- oriented project in the uneasy aftermath of 1976 Soweto student revolt, dedicated to improving black students’ chances at gaining access to university-level knowledge.
Created by caring members of the education and business sectors, Funda grew in stature throughout the 1980s to become, in its heyday, a sprawling education centre with a very definite focus on nurturing fine arts and music.
Some of today’s most prominent black artists took root and nourishment from the rich cultural soil Funda provided to the underprivileged of Soweto, who had no recourse to the educational centres “up north” in Johannesburg.
Here, artists and teachers from Wits University and various others came to share and encourage a joy in artistic creation among black learners – some as young as seven.
“Our country was not stable [after 1976], there were problems for black artists,” says Ezekiel Budeli, a former student at Funda. “We were worried whether we would be accepted in the art world as professionals.”
Today, the newly renamed Funda Community College offers courses in a variety of subjects, from adult literacy to management and public enterprise, which teaches students how to set up their own small business. At a stage in the country’s development where empowerment is crucial, Funda delivers the goods.
“Our students come from all over – some from Soweto and others from as far away as Durban,” says Dr Bhekithemba Walter Ngcobo, the rector of the college.
“Funda is special in that it is the only college of its kind in South Africa today,” Ngcobo says. What he admires most about the college is that “the sky is the limit” in terms of its ability to grow and adapt to new situations.
“Throughout the history of this institution, Funda has provided an alternative education. It has to change with the times … The projects of the 1970s and 1980s revolved around arts because that was something you would not get in the schools,” Ngcobo says.
Though the circumstances have changed since the bad old days, the spirit at Funda has not. Even now, the memory of those days gives Funda a fond place in many hearts.
Walking around the college during lunch hour, one can hear a group of singers harmonising under a staircase, while a solo piano player tinkles out tunes, rehearsing for his recital in a sunny courtyard made brighter by 2m high murals.
Today many ex-students have returned to Funda as adults, to teach the next wave of artists. Budeli is one such teacher, and he feels a renewed sense of responsibility to continue the cycle of learning. “I want to plough back the skills I have, to teach other people,” he says, earnestly.
Charles Nkosi, the head of department at fine arts, says it is a huge motivation for the students that “some of their best teachers are guys who were here themselves”.
Another incentive for students to shine is that there is an active move to place those students in real jobs in the arts world after their studies. Sydney Selepe, now director of arts and culture in Gauteng; Lucky Giyane, a print-maker at Artistproof Studios; Dominic Shabango who works at Pace magazine, and Grace Tshikuve, a practising artist, are some of the luminaries he can remember off-hand as being students.
Nhlanhla Xaba was honoured as the 1998 Standard Bank Young Artist Award-winner, while Richman Buthelezi has just been made an artist-in-residence in Grahamstown.
Despite the commitment on the ground, a new struggle has begun for Funda as an institution – a struggle for funding from an already overburdened Department of Education. Fundraising overseas, which used to be a vital source of income during the 1980s, now brings in a mere trickle.
Indomitable, Nkosi says the limitations of space, funding and resources have “taught us to be innovative.
“We use themes and resources that are available, from collage to papier mach.”
But that might not be enough to keep Funda ahead in terms of its objectives. “One has to keep reviewing community needs and introducing new things to keep up with the need,” Nkosi says. It’s a matter of survival, in a world where computer graphics are fast replacing traditional illustrators’ work commercially.
“Funda needs real support from the arts patrons of the world,” Nkosi says.