Robert Mshengu Kavanagh (born 1944 in Durban) is an author. Robert McLaren (aka Robert Mshengu Kavanagh) is an arts educator, practitioner and writer in South Africa, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Educated in Cape Town, Oxford (Rhodes Scholar) and Leeds. Co-founded/chaired university Theatre Arts Departments at Addis Ababa and Zimbabwe. Co-founded influential South African theatre organisation, Workshop '71 (1971-6), and Zimbabwean arts education trust, CHIPAWO, in 1989, of which he was Executive Director up to 2010. Currently Director of CHIPAWO World. Chairman ASSITEJ Zimbabwe (1996-9). His involvement in arts education ranges from university theatre arts departments to early childhood arts education, from music, dance and drama with children in disadvantaged rural and urban areas to professional youth theatre.