Professional Profile for Lillian Mbabazi
Lillian Mbabazi is an assistant lecturer of Applied Theatre and Drama at Makerere University and 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’/’TUNAMWEZA’, 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 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 she 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.
