Mwila Keso (IAA 22-23), it all started on the stage, when she realized her music could be her strongest voice. As a student at Interlochen Arts Academy, Keso found that her grit for pioneering change and her sparkling singing voice had the power to engage student audiences and the local community alike. For many young alumni in her shoes, especially Contemporary Performance majors like Keso, the years after high school typically include going to college and pursuing a career in performance. But this Zambian teenager has chosen a very different path—one that’s both extremely challenging and deeply meaningful. Keso has returned to her home continent and committed herself to making a difference for survivors of domestic abuse in South Africa.
Born and raised in Zambia, Keso always considered herself African before anything else; therefore, the problems of South Africa were her own.
“When one woman’s killed every six hours by her intimate partner, it’s a genocide. And it took me coming to South Africa to realize that the genocide was brutally exacerbated by Poverty.”
Keso initially set out to start a Music for Wellness program for survivors of abuse who have no access to mental health care. However, she would soon realize that no therapeutic intervention would be sustainable if, poverty, the biggest exacerbator of abuse remained unaddressed. She understood that to sustain healing, it needed to be holistic. That’s what Birthed what she now calls, The Wholeful Healing Journey. Alongside Music for Wellness, she teaches her own financial literacy and human rights class, rallies local business students to teach small business management training, and teaches basic human rights classes.
Fortunately, Keso wasn’t a stranger to practical financial concepts. While at Interlochen, she’d taken a class in advanced financial literacy. Now, she adapted what she’d learned about budgeting and entrepreneurship to make her own curriculum designed to help South African women build the financial independence they needed to leave their abusers.
“Some of the survivors I serve earn as little as $25 a month with four kids,” says Keso. “My focus has been getting the women out of those situations so that they don’t have to worry about what they’re going to eat.”
Through Keso’s efforts, dozens of women have now received training in personal finances. 80% of the women Keso works with regularly are now debt-free, and several of them are now starting small businesses as accredited beauticians. Still others are earning their living as seamstresses making bags and garments.
With her Interlochen leadership and activism laying a propelling foundation, she has elevated her mission to “represent the underrepresented” to greater heights.
“My song and my artistry were always dedicated to causes beyond my own self. If you looked at how I spent my time at Interlochen, you’d think I was studying music for activism.”
Keso doesn’t only continue using her musical talents beyond her ownself, but also continues to advocate for the universal need for each one us to live lives bigger than our ownselves. The African ethos called, Ubuntu.