The Soul Beat 189 - Theatre for Development in Africa
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
- THEATRE against Worms and for Reproductive Health...
- Community Theatre for HIV/AIDS Awareness...
- SOUL BEAT AFRICA Theme Sites...
- Legislative and Narrative Theatre for DEMOCRACY and GOVERNANCE...
- Theatre for CLIMATE CHANGE Awareness and Adaptation...
Welcome to the first issue of The Soul Beat e-newsletter in 2012. We hope to continue to inspire and strengthen your work by sharing with you knowledge and resources from Africa on a range of development and communication topics.
This issue of The Soul Beat looks specifically at theatre for development. It includes programme experiences, research reports, evaluations, and materials that look at theatre as it is being used to create awareness and facilitate behaviour change in the areas of health and HIV/AIDS, democracy and governance, and climate change.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please send information to soulbeat@comminit.com
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SOUL BEAT AFRICA EDUTAINMENT THEMESITE
For further information on theatre for development and other edutainment related information, visit Soul Beat Africa's Edutainment Theme site click here.
HEALTH PROMOTION THEATRE
1. Acting Against Worms Evaluation Report
This report, published by Theatrescience in June 2011, shares findings of an evaluation of Acting Against Worms (AAW), a drama-based initiative designed to improve understanding and public engagement with health messages related to preventing and controlling schistosomiasis and intestinal worms amongst rural communities in Uganda. AAW, a collaboration between the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI), the Ugandan Ministry of Health, and Theatrescience, was carried out in Busia district in Eastern Uganda, which is endemic for schistosomiasis and intestinal worms. According to the report, little difference was found between baseline and final evaluation in terms of knowledge and awareness, but more young people identified school as a source for information about schistosomiasis.
2. How Do You Use Drama to Teach People about Family Planning?
This news article, published on the Marie Stopes International (MSI) website on October 31 2011, describes a partnership between MSI Zambia and the national non-governmental organisation (NGO) Africa Directions that is using theatre as a tool to address the cultural norms and traditions in an effort to save women's lives. The purpose of the performances is to provide women with accurate, objective advice about their sexual and reproductive healthcare choices so they can access the full range of short-term and long-acting or permanent methods (LAPM) of voluntary family planning, as well as legal, safe abortion services.
3. Expanding Reproductive Rights Knowledge and Advocacy with HIV-positive Women and their Allies in Namibia - An Action-Oriented Initiative
By Maria de Bruyn
This report, published by Ipas in January 2010, looks at a Namibian project that was designed to increase awareness about gender and reproductive rights among members of the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) and youth in order for them to advocate on these issues, particularly the need for legalised abortion, within communities and nationally. A youth group from the rural community of Dordabis outside of Namibia's capital, Windhoek, received training in the use of drama to communicate with rural communities about issues such as abortion, domestic violence, and HIV. The report states that eventually, the number of incidents decreased and the success of these dramas mobilised other communities to request performances.
4. Feel! Think! Act! A Guide to Interactive Drama for Sexual and Reproductive Health With Young People
This toolkit, published by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance Secretariat in March 2008, looks at how interactive drama can be used in work with young people to encourage them to think about and take action to improve sexual and reproductive health (SRH). It is based on the experience of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, its partners, and drama practitioners working in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia. The guide contains ideas for drama and discussion activities designed to help young people learn about SRH issues and gain skills in facilitating and using interactive drama tools and techniques. It was created for youth groups, community youth workers, community drama groups, teachers, people working in sexual and reproductive health and HIV programmes, and anyone who wants to use drama as a process of learning and action on sexual and reproductive health.
5. National Teacher Training HIV End Line Survey Malawi 2009
By George Chidalengwa and Sitingawawo Kachingwe
This report shares findings from an external evaluation of the first year of Theatre for a Change (TfaC)'s work with trainee teachers in Malawi to reduce HIV/AIDS. According to the report, published by TfaC and the British Council in January 2009, Malawian teachers have the third highest HIV prevalence rate among occupational groups after sex workers and police officers. TfaC offers an after-school programme that uses interactive theatre participatory learning techniques to provide teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours to protect themselves from HIV infection. According to the evaluation, TfaC has achieved commendable success in their first year of intervention, with a few areas of weakness that need to be examined.
6. Changing Behaviour, Changing Lives - Video
This four-minute video clip tells of the impact of interactive community theatre performances, organised by PATH in Kenya to help individuals and communities examine and alter risky behaviours associated with HIV/AIDS, on one of the audience members, Nelson. PATH explains that the performances, dubbed "magnet theatre" due to their natural pulling power, are designed to get people talking about how traditional attitudes may be fuelling the epidemic. PATH says that subjects such as HIV and sex, once taboo, become regular topics of conversation, laying the groundwork for societal attitudes to change and for new social norms to take hold.
7. Event Impact Assessment of SAFE Educational Theatre for HIV/AIDS
During the second half of 2006, the Ford Foundation sponsored an impact assessment of the work of Sponsored Arts for Education (SAFE). SAFE is a United Kingdom charity and Kenyan non-governmental organisation that uses the professional arts, primarily theatre, to promote health education issues in Kenya. The purpose of the assessment was to establish the effectiveness of using high quality theatre as an intervention to break the silence, stigma, superstition, and discrimination that surround HIV/AIDS, and provide communities with accurate health information. The report shows that the plays are designed appropriately and are appealing to the majority of the audience.
8. Lucky the Hero - Theatre Production - South Africa
Launched in 2005 by the Educational Theatre Company of the Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management at Stellenbosch University, Lucky the Hero is a 30-minute musical theatrical performance presented in Afrikaans and English, mostly as a combination of both languages. The main objectives of the show are to: increase general HIV knowledge levels, encourage safer sexual practices, combat discrimination and stigma, and promote HIV testing. The performance uses music, dance, and drama to communicate key messages about HIV/AIDS in a way that is entertaining and easy for rural audiences to understand. The play traces the journey of a young man, Lucky, who becomes aware of his risky behaviour through information he hears on a radio programme.
9. Sanganisai Children's Festival - Zimbabwe
In March 2007, Grassroots Theatre Company hosted the Sanganisai Children's Festival (SCF) to provide support for rural Zimbabweans facing economic difficulties - in particular, for children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. The acts were performed for and by children, to share their inner feelings and issues that affect them, as well as to elicit the support they need from their communities. As part of the process, schoolteachers were trained on theatre for development/education techniques and concepts. The workshops covered issues such as play-making, use of the stage, theatre approaches, and acting skills. The teachers then used these skills to work with their students to develop dramas and performances for the festival.
Soul Beat Africa theme sites are topic focused sub-sites within the overall Soul Beat Africa website (see top navigation bar). These include:
Democracy and Governance Themesite
PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE THROUGH THEATRE
10. Schools for Dialogue - Rwanda
Part of the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP) initiative, The Schools for Dialogue Project works to help Rwandan society overcome obstacles to lasting peace. Schools for Dialogue started in 2007 and is designed to raise young people's awareness around issues of tolerance and democratic principles, to engage them in the search for solutions to peace-building challenges, and develop their skills in open and critical dialogue. Senior level students are introduced to peace-building topics and encouraged to openly analyse and debate the issues through song, dance, theatre, drawing, and poetry.
11. Silent No More: Youth Legislative Theatre in Kenya
By Jack Shaka and Mary Goretty Ajwang
This book gives an overview of a number of legislative theatre activities carried out in Kenyan schools under the Silent No More project. The legislative theatre technique, first used by Brazilian Augusto Boal, promotes public participation in relation to service provision. The concept is similar to that of forum theatre in that it focuses on the creation of new law. According to the book, legislative theatre is a good tool to apply when addressing issues around the constitution with youth groups since they play and learn as they address particular issues.
12. Healing Communities by Strengthening Social Capital: a Narrative Theatre Approach
By Yvonne Sliep
This book, published by the War Trauma Foundation in 2009, outlines the use of narrative theatre for social action at the community level and provides an overview of narrative theatre and the theory supporting it, using two examples of narrative theatre in practice in Burundi as reference. The book provides an overview of how to develop a training course for narrative theatre facilitators and offers specific activities that can be included. According to the publication, narrative theatre is an approach that can be used as a form of counselling for traumatised communities.
13. The Last Man Standing Puppet Show - Kenya Launched in 2010, this puppetry performance produced by the Kenya Institute of Puppet Theatre advocates for conservation and participatory management of the Greater Mara ecosystem that supports the wildebeest and other wildlife species in Kenya. The performance is designed to raise awareness and inspire community-based mobilisation around climate change and protecting the environment. The Last Man Standing is a tale of a brave wildebeest called Mara. The story is told in 2070 by Bones (a carcass of Mara) and a letter written by the Mask in 2010 warning of the pending danger of climate change that has wiped out the wildebeest. In a performance combining puppets, objects, figures, architecture, and installation, Mara goes through the most trying moments in her life.
14. ClimateConscious Programme - Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania
This programme was set up by ResourceAfrica UK in 2009 to respond to climate change challenges facing communities reliant on natural resources. The programme, which operates in South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, and Kenya, uses innovative and creative methods, including community theatre and photostories, to build capacity, promote awareness, and support knowledge exchange on community adaptation to climate change. Local messages on climate change impacts and coping strategies are captured through interviews at the local level, documented with village photo stories, and presented through theatre performances. The theatre productions are then refined through feedback and facilitated discussions with audiences.
15. Bennde Mutale Theatre Group - South Africa
This theatre group works to bring environmental education to the Bennde Mutale community near the Mozambican and Zimbabwean borders of South Africa, particularly around global warming and climate change adaptation, though entertaining theatre productions. Working in cooperation with the local community, Resource Africa founded the Bennde Mutale Theatre Group in 2009, as part of their Climate Change Community-Based Adaptation Programme. The Bennde Mutale Theatre Group develops productions that are designed to be open-ended and flexible, in order to encourage audiences to engage and participate. The dramas are designed to raise awareness about global warming and explain the principles around climate change - why and how it is occurring, and what effects it has on communities globally and locally.
Related previous issues of The Soul Beat include:
The Soul Beat 184 - Storytelling for Change
The Soul Beat 158 - Theatre for Social Change
To view ALL past editions of The Soul Beat e-newsletter click here.
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