Mamboleo: Art opened doors to the world
Arts Lounge
By
Manuel Ntoyai
| Aug 04, 2024
Who is Mamboleo?
Mamboleo is a stage actor, poet, community mobiliser and founder Kaloito Festival and Kajiado TV. However, my name is Dominic Kimitta. I was born in Loitoktok in Kajiado County. Born of a creative Teacher and writer father, I was slowly introduced to writing and performances at a small age, this grew and was manifested in the older age.
Walk us through your journey as a poet.
After years of quickly growing in theatre performances and writing, through performances of school based set books like Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's River Between and Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People and writing scripts for national drama festivals, (2012 Best Swahili play Rift valley 'Utu Wenye Kutu'), I believe I was ready for bigger audiences.
After I cleared my O levels, I started writing a subgenre of poetry known as urban poetry, my pieces were first featured at the Fatumas Voice platform alongside the likes of RixPoet, Chris Mukasa and Kwamboka Kwamboka. Here we got to express our work through poetry and would spread my wings to Kwani Open Mic spaces and other amazing platforms like Street Poetry at Aga Khan walk where we would entertain and educate lovers of poetry every Sunday evening.
I represented Kenya at the Abayimba festival, an annual national festival in Uganda which brings artists of different genres from all over Eastern Africa. I also performed 'Africa kills her sun', a play at the Zanzibar International Film Festival. I would say (with) my tutelage under Mrisho Mpoto I became better a Swahili poet.
I have staged Swahili poetry in several national platforms, including Churchill Show, as well hosting major events in Kenya as an MC like the Reproductive Health Network Conference; Malindi 2019, The International Youth Day at the UN Complex 2019, The Pre-Conference AHAIC 2019 Rwanda and many other Youth Oriented Events.
How has the experience been working with NGOs?
It has been a revealing journey, because of the networking opportunities that result in creative solutions. I was fortunate to represent Africa as a Global youth ambassador in a six months Planned Parenthood exchange program on youth and Governance in the United States (Washington DC and Texas).
I am The Program Officer with the Network of Adolescents and Youth of Africa program Kajiado West and a Global Youth Ambassador for Planned Parenthood Global.
Art opened many other spaces and opportunities in the country and beyond, I got to use art in many other interventions including talking about Sexual Health rights amongst young people.
Tell us about your initiative Kaloito Festival
Kaloito Festival is a non-profit youth hub and platform founded in 2018, meant to bring young people together to achieve, meaningful youth engagement, promote social accountability and fight retrogressive cultural practices, it is the only consistent art platform in Kajiado County. It, over years, brought together close to over 100 artists in various forms of performances.
Why did you choose to work in upcountry and not urban areas?
As an organiser I was informed by the fact that Kenya has a youthful rural population; the latest data from the census 2019 by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) reveal that 35.7 million Kenyans (75.1 per cent) are below 35 years, while 32.73 million (68.9 per cent) live in rural areas.
There has also been over saturation of showbiz in the cities while ignoring the talented youth in the rural areas. The good this is that technology helps us to leverage on this problem and as a digitally empowered populace, the young people in rural areas are able to get almost equal opportunities like others in urban areas.
Kaloito Festival is and will continue engaging young people in the rural Kenya, mostly in pastoralists regions like Kajiado, Samburu, Narok and Tana River to engage meaningfully in Governance and policy making.
We use art as a form of civic engagement through dance, poetry, graffiti, theatre, music, writing, film and photography to spark civic participation through focusing attention on emerging social concerns in the country and in the process prompt action.