BIG MEET UP: Arts and Literature lovers to converge at Nevender Legacy celebration

This Saturday, lovers of Ugandan literature and friends of Nevender will descend upon Lukuli Nanganda to celebrate Joel Benjamin Ntwatwa. 

The function kicks off at 2pm and will be a celebration of the prolific output of Ntwatwa who was better known by his nom de plum Nevender. The event will be a chance for many Ugandan artists and literature lovers to congregate for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in late 2019 and froze most public events, including art. 

Organisers of the Nevender Arts Event have described this Saturday’s meet as designed to be a celebration of the arts as Nevender himself did everyday of his short life until his passing in 2018. 

One of Nevender’s brothers Paul, and organiser, says many performers in the arts realm are expected to stage a show for the attendees. There will be poetry performances, singing, story telling and readings from Nevender’s work. 

The event is expected to attract many prominent bloggers as Nevender was a long time champion of the genre. Nevender was an active participant in the Uganda blogging community. He was one of the first arts inclined Ugandans to set up his own blog and later website to showcase his writing and later other bloggers writing. 

Nevender was pivotal in organising blogger meet ups who then called them blogrens. This was in the early 2000s around 2005 to 2008 era, long before social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were founded or became common in Africa and Uganda in particular. 

Although he was multi talented and could have settled for an office job with attendant perks, Nevender surprised his family by deciding to dedicate himself to the arts. Nevender made it his mission to show that one could be an artist in Uganda and live by their art. In pursuit of this goal, he would teach himself a lot about photography, graphic design, copy writing as he evolved to become a Jack of all trades. 

The December 18 event, which also falls on his birthday, will thus be an opportunity for those who attend to see how diverse Nevender’s talents really were. His work included copywriting and promoting campaigns for companies including Shell/Vivo Energy, Coca Cola/Coke Studio Africa, and The Pearl Guide. He was a scriptwriter for NTV’s Timeline television programme.

Nevender battled with Sickle Cell Anaemia all his life but refused to let the illness slow down his productivity. He became a lifelong advocate of understanding the illness and sourcing for its treatment as well helping those who lived with it learn how to cope. He appeared on NTV Uganda in 2017 to share his story of living with the illness.

The 2021 event will be the beginning of public discussions on Nevender’s next production as his family has been gathering material from content he left behind to produce another work. The book is slated to be published in 2022 and excerpts from the work as well as discussions with Nevender friends and collaborators on how to present the work will be on the table at Lukuli Nanganda today. 

This is a must attend event for lovers of art and literature, a perfect cap to 2021 and welcoming the New Year.