SILENT VOICES UGANDA
FULL TIME STAFF
ADONG Lucy Judith
Artistic Director
SSEBAGGALA Andrew Jedidiah
Finance Manager
AKELLO Gloria,
Former Producing Assistant
MPEIRWE Arthur
Legal Consultant
SEBAMALA
Douglas Dubois
Public Relations / Media and Marketing Manager
ADONG Lucy Judith, Artistic Director
An alumna of Sundance Theater Lab, Royal Court Theatre International Playwrights Residency and Renowned Hollywood Director, Mira Nair’s Maisha Film Lab currently living in her home country Uganda, ADONG is a Theater/Film Creative Director, Writer & Producer, who creates captivating plays and films that provoke and promote dialogue on social issues affecting underprivileged groups.
She is a 2015 graduate of Temple University MFA Film and Media Arts, under the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship 2012, where she also took classes in MFA Theatre Directing and Playwriting. She also taught classes in International Cinema and Screenwriting. She won the Margaret McNamara Memory Fund Education Grant USA/Canada 2014 and was voted among the WHO IS WHO in American Universities and Colleges 2015.
Adong also holds a B.A (Arts), Subjects-Luo Language, Literature and Drama and a Diploma in Music, Dance and Drama, both of Makerere University’s Department of Performing Arts and Film, where she currently Lectures courses in Creative Writing, Directing and Producing.
Directing Credits include: Ga-AD! 2016, Right Song, Wrong C(h)ord Movie 2016, Silent Voices 2015 and Dwon Ma Peke 2015 (Silent Voices Acholi Production 2015) which toured Gulu, Kitgum, Lira and Kampala.
Play titles to her name includes: Silent Voices (Justice for War Crime Victims in Northern Uganda), Just Me, You and THE SILENCE (Gay Rights Struggle in Uganda), Ga-AD (Uganda’s Pentecostal Church Religious Politics), A Time to Celebrate (Child Sacrifice Practices in Uganda), Holy Maria (A 10mins play on Social Media Deception that featured at Zimbabwe International Arts Festival) and Blood ( Modern Day Adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs that featured at 48 Hours in Harlem, a 10mins play writing and production challenge within 48 hours hosted by the OBIE Award-Winning Harlem 9 and the National Black Theatre, New York.
Her plays have been presented in different theatres in New York, London, Toronto and Chicago and/or has been/is being studied at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, New York University and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hills, where she has also been invited as a Visiting Artist.
“… This is an important piece that deserves to be heard and we are pleased to be providing an opportunity for audiences to connect with its message”, Kevin Spacey, Oscar Award-Winning actor and Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theatre in London, on Adong’s play Just Me, You and THE SILENCE that he hosted to a 1, 000+ gala audience in November 2012.
Adong is also a Published Writer by MacMillan and Fountain Publishers and has worked as a Professional Acholi-English/English-Acholi Translator and Interpreter for many Organizations and Companies including the Commonwealth Secretariat Election Observers (2006), The International Criminal Courts and United Nations Children Education Funds (UNICF) among others.
Before going to Graduate Film School in the USA, Adong worked on a number of Film, Television and Radio Drama Projects in Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan, which includes among others: Screenwriter, Lost Dreams (Land Mines Awareness Film by Great Lakes Film Production Ltd/Handicap International, Uganda, 2011), Creator and Writer, The Nurse Mildred Radio Drama (a 24-Episodes Radio Drama Series on Family Planning and HIV by John Hopkins University Health Department 2011), Staff Screenwriter, The Agency (M-NET Hour Long Original Television Drama Series Set in Nairobi, Kenya 2009) and Creator and Writer, River Yei Junction (a 13-Episdes Radio Drama Series on Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law by Resource Centre for Civil Leadership in Yei, South Sudan 2008).
SSEBAGGALA Andrew Jedidiah, Finance Manager
The Producing Director of Silent Voices Uganda, Ssebaggala is also the Founding Director of House Of Talent East Africa Ltd a Performing and Creative Arts Company, who has been an Arts Manager for over 10 years. He is a Professional Business Development Consultant, Producer, Production Manager, Events Manager, Media Planner, Singer, Storyteller and Arts Facilitator.
Andrew supports and collaborates with a number of creative arts initiatives and institutions including the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Uganda National Cultural Centre/National Theatre and Babishai Niwe (BNPA) among others.
He holds a Diploma in Music, Dance and Drama, Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management and Post graduate studies in Business Administration in Marketing from Makerere University.
He has worked for the Eastern Africa Theatre Institute-Uganda National Chapter managing 3 Sida (Swedish International Development Agency) funded Artistic Projects- Dramatool, PACSEA-Performing Arts Collaboration between Swedish and Eastern Africa and EATI. He has also worked for the following creative arts projects: UMOJA-the cultural flying carpet in Uganda, NUVO arts Festival, the Annual World Culture Day, and the annual dance collaborative project between Makerere University’s Performing Arts and Film Department and the Norwegian Dance College.
SEBAMALA Douglas Dubois, Public Relations / Media and Marketing Manager
Douglas Dubois Sebamala is a multimedia journalists, arts writer, arts critique and actor/performing artist from Uganda. He performed a poetry piece, Destitutes, for Her Majesty, the Queen of England in 2007 during the Common Wealth Heads of Government Meeting, but chronicles his first performance at the age of three, when he aced a kindergarten recital after only a night's rehearsal. He is a celebrated actor in local TV series, as Simon on Second Chance, NTV Uganda’s remake of Telemundo drama series by the same title.
This graduate of Journalism and Communication at Makerere University, is a passionate writer, playwright, arts critique and former features Writer at Daily Monitor Publications, who loves to tell stories, and believes the best way he can share his experience and the experience of others is through writing and visual story telling. The changing face of Journalism has allowed him border away from traditional storytelling, engaging a lot of his work online, and amply using the new media to tell these stories.
He is one of three winner of the World Bank’s 2017 Blog4Dev essay Competition that explored what more can be done to End Gender Based Violence in Uganda. He is as passionate about women’s issues which are part of the subject matter that we explore in our productions such as gender equality, gender based violence, the role of women, depression in women, etc.
Sebamala joined the Silent Voices Team in 2017 during our production of Just Me You and The Silence, where his marketing skills and social media expertise contributed to growing our following online and currently in his position, tasks himself with growing our theatre audiences and the media material produced for the public and media release. His minor courses in Literary Criticism and Film studies in the due course of his Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and Communication at Makerere, fed into his artistic criticism and fueled his love for performance, and his current position as PR/Media & Marketing Manager at Silent Voices Uganda.
He has performed in multiple stage, theatre and film productions with roles like Blazio on Rock Point 256, a radio drama series, the reading for A Ghost Story, an adaptation of reknown playwright Francis Imbuga's Betrayal in the City written by Lloyd Literature and directed by Angella Emurwon, and Emurwon’s Strings at the 2017 Kampala International Theatre Festival. As Dr. Kaija, a Medical doctor in Crossroads, a drama by the Uganda Cancer Institute, Much Ado About Nothing as Claudio, Tragedy of Macbeth as Lennox, Grease as Danny Zuko, and a current Television drama on Urban TV, Taste of Time. Visit his Professional Actors’ Page here
AKELLO Gloria, Former Producing Assistant
Akello started her Theatre Production career as the Production Assistant for Silent Voice 2012 Production and due to her excellent managerial skills became the Production Manager for Dwon Ma Peke (Silent Voices Acholi Production 2015) from which Achiro P. Olwoch noticed her managerial skills and offered her the same position on the production of the documentary film, My prison Diary by Achiro Media Productions 2015.
She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Adult and Community Education from Makerere University where she was the Deputy in charge of academics at her college. She was the president of the Education for sustainable Development (ESD) club-A United Nations initiated project. She was also part of the youth selected to present at the United Nations Launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). Akello has made several other presentations on Sustainability and Environmental Protection which she is very passionate about. She is the co-founder of the Ayaa Lehua Girls’ Scholarship Program; a scholarship for girls from disadvantaged families in Northern Uganda and volunteers as a translator for different causes.
Akello, who is also an aspiring Writer and Poet, loves to make sure that things run smoothly so as the Production Manager of Silent Voices Uganda, she is in her element.
FOUNDING DIRECTORS
ADONG Lucy Judith
AKELLO Gloria
LAKAREBER Jacqueline
BOARD OF ADVISORS
MBABAZI Lillian
MABINGO Alfdaniels
LALAM Milcah
MBABAZI Lillian
Lillian Mbabazi is an assistant lecturer of Applied Theatre and Drama at Makerere University. She is also an Applied Theatre Facilitator particularly in Theatre for Development, Young People’s Theatre and Theatre/ Drama in Education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Drama from Makerere University, a master’s degree in Theatre and Global Development from University of Leeds as well as several other qualifications from various formal and informal theatre and non-theatre related trainings from within and without the country.
Lillian has experience working in theatre as a writer, actress and director, researcher as well as facilitator dating as far back as 2003. She has specific interest and experience intergenerational theatre, inclusive theatre, community theatre and Young People’s Theatre. She also has experience in arts management and coordination.
Her recent artistic project has been with urban refugee youths linked to Inter-Aid Uganda Limited in which she was the artistic director and drama trainer for a production titled ‘WE CAN’/‘TUNAWEZA’, which premiered at the National Theatre in January 2016. She’s also working as a producer for two Children’s Theatre plays ‘Monsters’ and ‘Where is the Love?’ which were created in Sweden and Denmark in 2015 by Ugandan writers. In 2013 and 2014, she engaged in an Inclusive Theatre project (Muli Mutya! Lancashire Inclusive Theatre Project), which took place in Blackpool, UK and in Kampala in collaboration with TramShed Theatre Company (tramshed.org.uk), who are specialists in inclusive arts practice. The aims of Muli Mutya! Lancashire Inclusive Theatre project were to introduce inclusive arts in Uganda.
In 2013, Lillian coordinated the Youth Theatre Project, which was a component of The Uganda Youth Cultures Project, which focused on the youth and creative arts. YTP's objective was to enhance youths in Uganda to participate in innovative arts as a way to achieve social cohesion and economic empowerment.
Lillian also has experience in workshop delivery and theatre training specifically with young persons as well as Persons with disabilities locally and internationally. In 2012, she participated in a workshop and theatre engagement at Mind the Gap, an organisation working with children and youths with Learning disabilities in Bradford, UK. In 2012, she worked with Leeds Young Authors, an organisation that uses poetry and spoken word as an approach to creative education to promote positive social dialogue among young people of High School age (ages 13-19), primarily in the City of Leeds. She has also enabled and delivered Young People’s Theatre workshops in a number of settings in Kampala and Wakiso, including, but not limited to schools, churches, and children’s homes.
Lillian has proficiency in working in intergenerational theatre settings. In 2010, she took an active role in the Uganda Intergenerational Women’s Theatre project, a research project between University of Leeds and Makerere University. The project brought together women from Namukozi Women’s Group, secondary school girls from Nabiswera Secondary school in Nakasongola and Makerere University students in a theatre project that enabled dialogue amongst these women as an approach to discuss and raise awareness about issues that confront them irrespective of educational level, status or any affiliations.
She has also actively participated in the Uganda National Schools’ Music, Dance and Drama Festivals as a trainer of trainers and as an adjudicator.
MABINGO Alfdaniels
Alfdaniels Mabingo is a dance researcher, scholar, writer, performer and educator. He is currently pursuing PhD in Dance Studies at the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, the University of Auckland. His phenomenological doctoral research engages the philosophies of Ubuntu and the theories of constructivism, conscience collective, and social cultural learning to examine the interplay between individual rationality and communality in the pedagogic applications by Ugandan traditional dance teachers in central Uganda. Alfdaniels holds an MA in Dance Education (New York University), and MA in Performing Arts (Makerere University), and a BA in dance degree, both from Makerere University. He is serving as an Assistant Lecturer of Dance in the Department of Performing Arts and Film, Makerere University. Previously, he has served as Adjunct Faculty of African Dances and Intercultural Dance in the Department of Performing Arts and Professions at New York University and Professional Teaching Fellow of East African Dances in the Dance Studies Program at the University of Auckland. Alfdaniels has also worked on community outreach dance programs in Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan. He has won scholarships and awards that include the prestigious Fulbright Junior Staff Development Scholarship, the University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship, Makerere University Staff Development Scholarship, and the best overall Humanities student award at the 48thst-49th graduation at Makerere University in 2005. His research areas of interest include: pedagogies of African dances, dance in higher education, community dance, dance and identity, and the neoliberal economics of dance practices. He has published articles and book chapters and presented at conferences and staged his choreography in Uganda, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Some of his published peer-reviewed scholarly articles include:
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Teaching Uganda Traditional Dances and Drumming for Summer Camps in the U.S,. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (in print).
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Pedagogies of Adaptation: Teachers’ Reflections on Teaching Traditional Ugandan Dances in (sub)urban Schools in Kampala, Uganda (in print).
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Decolonizing Dance Pedagogy: Application of Pedagogies of Ugandan Traditional Dances in Formal Dance Education. Journal of Dance Education (2015).
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Dancing into Academia: Trajectories of Traditional Dances from Community-Based Practices to Pre-Tertiary and Tertiary Education in Uganda, (2015).
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NYU Dance Education Study Abroad Program to Uganda: Impact on Work Experiences of Study Abroad Alumni in New York City. Research in Dance Education, (2015).
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Refugees, Migrants, Visitors and Internally Displaced Persons: Investigating Acculturation. Journal of Academia, Higher Education Research and Development, (2015).
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Teaching East African Dance in Higher Education in the U.S: Reconciling Content and Pedagogy. Online Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship, (2014).
LALAM Milcah
Milcah Lalam is a development specialist with special expertise in trauma recovery, drama therapy and theatre for development. She is the Great Lakes Initiative (GLI) Regional Coordinator. Her work with GLI covers seven countries in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa. She held various positions in her ten years of work with RECONCILE International- a faith based organization in Sudan and later South Sudan. Living in countries experiencing the trauma of war, poverty and violence, she worked closely with religious and civil leaders, displaced persons, women, youth, victims of rape and abuse, development and human rights workers in peace building and trauma recovery. She facilitates strategic projects related to psychosocial rehabilitation, nurturing resilience, conflict resolution and capacity development for small and large-scale interventions in corporate, community and international settings to promote relationship building and social change. Milcah holds an MA in Theatre and Development Studies emphasis on post conflict development and theatre for development from University of Leeds-UK, a BA in Drama from Makerere University Kampala, and specialized certificates in Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Transformation, Theatre and Peace building from Eastern Mennonite University, USA.