By Enoch from Ghana

A highlight of my experience so far has been producing the story on Containers Village at Shed 14 at Melbourne’s Docklands. It’s where 43 young artist groups from Commonwealth countries are exhibiting in twenty-foot shipping containers.

I only got to see three of the containers as I was busy interviewing their artists, while the other reporters got to see a lot more, but I didn’t mind as the artists were very interesting.

One such artist was, Michael Saal. His container, Ghetto Games is an exhibition documenting and preserving the toys and games children play in the streets of South Africa. The games have been handed down from previous generations and use found objects and waste materials like sticks, tin cans, tyres and wires.

Back in Ghana, art is a big part of life for children who make toy cars from waste materials. Drawing is also popular — one of my classmates drew a beautiful picture of my village market and in my classroom everywhere on the wall you see drawings of lions, snakes and different types of animals drawn by the children. The funny thing is that there is no teacher for art — the children just learn and do it on their own.

Another artist I met was an Australian man who made rickshaws from recycled waste to help the disabled get to various venues at the Games. He was very funny.

We also interviewed the director of Shed 14 who explained that the Commonwealth Games is not only about sports and athletics, but about cultural exchange.

When we all visited the youth club in Euroa, a rural Victorian community, I noticed play and recreation was a big part of their lives. It is very different to our life as most of their rights are realised, but ours are not so — our clubs spend a lot of time campaigning and educating about our rights and less time on play. But when I do get free time, I like to play football.

I think that governments should really invest in the arts and leisure so that rural youth can be employed as there is not many other opportunities for them.