Etv's Scandal actors inspire Gabs youth
It is always heart-warming people who are regarded as celebrities and whom people look up to give back to the community in their respective professions.
In commemoration of the Month of Youth Against AIDS (MYAA), Botswana’s Dream Alive club hosted South African television personalities, Hungani Ndlovu and Stephanie Sandows as guest facilitators for their four day workshop which took place at the BNYC grounds from the 12th-15th April.
Also known as Romeo on ETV’s Scandal, Ndlovu is also a dancer, presenter and youth mentor who said coming to Botswana had always been in his plans and so when the opportunity presented itself in the form of a partnership with the Dreams Alive club, he grabbed it with both hands. Well spoken, humble and a very humorous Ndlovu expressed his excitement and enthusiasm for the opportunity to share what he loved doing best with the underprivileged and fellow professionals. The desire and hunger to learn more about his passion, the creative arts is what drove him to create a place and space that ultimately became his company, the SANS Group.
“I figured that there were other people who felt the same way I felt and although at first things moved at a slower pace, once I started acting on Scandal that greatly improved,” he said during a press conference a day prior to the workshops. No stranger to hard work, Ndlovu admitted juggling his many portfolios in front of the camera and behind it along with being sorely responsible for the SANS Group has in the last month taken its toll on him as he fell ill due to fatigue. He however bounced back after taking time out to relax and coming up with a working formula to manage his hectic schedule.
His fellow actress known as Ingrid also on Scandal, Stephanie Sandows who is also a motivational speaker and a cast-director explained that she would be the one working with kids between the two of them as she had more understanding of children as a result of having worked with them for the past seven years. By sharing her craft with these children, it served as a form of encouragement not only to them but everybody else that the world is an oyster that is there for the taking. The duo warned that the workshops will be intense as their goal was to do a course they would normally do for eight weeks in four days.
For her part, Tshepiso Tebogo- Maruping, the Programs Coordinator at the Dreams Alive Club, explained that The Performers workshops sought to equip artists to use their creative craft and platform in the arts (in Acting, Dance, Presenting, Modeling, Showbiz) towards social and community development- with HIV/ AIDS prevention and Health promotion as the primary subject matter for this series of workshops.
