Upcycling Engolden Africa

One of our network schools, the Love School senior, founded by Veronicah Nduku in 2003 and is still managed today, constantly faced the problem of not being able to finance the monthly lease fees for the school property. The best solution for the approximately 400 students and 20 teachers would be to have their own property. But this is not easy. In the slums of Nairobi, as in all urban centers, land prices are rising sharply.

Many ideas were developed and then rejected as not feasible. At an event organized by Reinhard Kahl’s Archive of the Future at Lake Constance, Irmgard Wutte and the artist and happiness teacher Ursula Cyriax from Berlin first met and immediately “agreed” on a common project in Africa.

Before flying to Nairobi in the summer of 2016, they met in Berlin. They developed the idea of collecting materials in the slums of Kangemi and Kawangware and refining them with gold leaf brought from Germany, breathing new life into them. In other words, to “up-cycle” these everyday things. Where to get the gold? Friends, acquaintances and supporters of nyendo.lernen were asked to donate for it. By fall 2016, we received a total of €3,500 from the proceeds of the sale of old gold jewelry and dental gold.

Private persons supported this project with monetary donations and the Nyendo School Rosenheim organized a concert with the band “Jameram”. With this we could start under the motto “Upcycling Engolden Africa Project” or “Gold back to Africa”.

For 10 days Ursula Cyriax worked with 40 students and 10 teachers from 7 slum schools on UPCYCLING of old tools, keys, bottle caps, old magazines, phone cards and much more. It inspired them and thereby also gave them courage and self-confidence. For the children a wonderful change in their hard life in the slums, who were part of this project with a lot of eagerness and joy.

In September 2016, 28 artworks were exhibited for 2 weeks in “Lisa Christoffersen`s Home Gallery” in Runda in the hope that this would enhance it and raise funds for the purchase of the Love School property. Unfortunately, the success was only moderate. 4 paintings for a total of 1.570 € could be sold. The remaining “Modern Art” artworks can still be purchased.

More objects can be found in the report by Ursula Cyriax.