The British Council Arts homepage

Crossing Borders

 Lancaster University Homepage
 
welcome

 

Mission Statement

Crossing Borders will promote cross-cultural developmental dialogue between emergent African writers working in English and experienced UK-based mentors. This will be facilitated through dedicated on-line information technology facilities, which will open up shared creative and cultural space. Our emphasis will be on building a new international community of writers, on new work for a new world.

African dawn over Kololo hill, Kampala
African dawn, Kololo hill, Kampala
     

About the Project

Crossing Borders is a unique initiative developed by the British Council, Lancaster University and a range of partners in Africa. It is a cross-cultural distance-learning project for young African writers working in the fields of poetry, prose fiction and children’s writing.

Our aim is to create an audience for new African writing, working to develop the portfolios of individual writers through a mentoring system. Crossing Borders helps to break the isolation of young writers, promoting writing development, IT skills, library usage, cultural exchange and a greater knowledge of contemporary literature in English. It also aims to enrich the literary and cultural lives of writers who work as mentors on the scheme.

Each writer on the scheme is linked to an experienced professional UK mentor who gives close critical attention to their work through email exchange. The programme consists of 6 tutorials over a period of 9 months. At the end of the programme a series of live writing workshops and public readings are delivered by visiting UK writers.

Attention to the participant is personal and specific. The programme is structured so that participants can direct their own learning through correspondence with their mentor. A portfolio of new writing is developed and revised. A writing journal is kept by the participant and collates the entire experience of the course. This can be reviewed as an original piece of research to be drawn upon in the context of new creative work.

The programme is about to embark on the second year of its extended programme. It currently operates in Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon are poised to join the scheme in April 2004. South Africa will enter in June 2004, making this a truly pan-African initiative.

 
 What participants say:    
   
Crossing Borders has fundamentally changed my view of what it means to be a writer in this day and age. I’ve learned that as a writer one can only view the world in the context of where one has come from culturally. This programme has helped me to see that it is only by addressing the particular that one can hope to address the universal. So it has encouraged me to look closely at my own background and to look for things within the Ugandan cultural context that I believe are applicable on a universal level and this has enabled me to grow as a writer.    
Crossing Borders has helped me visualise myself more as a writer. Before the course I did not see myself as able to write but am now aware that with continued diligence I can translate my dreams into the reality of publishing books.    


Femrite writers cooperative, Kampala
Femrite writers cooperative, Kampala