Giving an account of the Theatre for Development process and how it helps drive community development. Providing one or two recent Zambian examples of how this process is carried out. In your answer you must clearly define what you understand by the terms “process”, “community”, and “development”.The main aim of this essay is to give an account of Theatre for Development (TFD) process, how it helps to drive community development.
The essay would further go on to look at recent Zambian example of how this process is carried out.Theatre for development is a famous means of communication for the people especially in less development societies. According to a website, Oscar-af.org, it says, “Theatre for Development is used not for catering entertainment to the people but is used to educate people. If used properly it can play a very important role in development as it educates people not only in human rights but also in development, civic rights, hygiene and civic participation”[1].In understanding Theatre for Development process to drive community development, it is prudent from the onset to understand some terms such as ‘process’, ‘community’ and ‘development’.
According to a website, its.syr.edu, “a process is a collection of interrelated work tasks initiated in response to an event that achieves a specific result”[2]. The term community according to a website, Wikipedia.org, “it is a group of interacting people living in some proximity. Usually referring to a social unity larger than a household that shares common values and has social cohesion”.
While some see development as a state or condition that is static, others see it as process or course of change. Development represents ideas and practices designed to bring about positive change in human societies. Gene Shackman et al says “development is a function of society’s capacity to organise human energies and productive resources to respond to opportunities and challenges”. Todaro, M. (1977) provides a concise description of development when he says that, “ development is not purely an economic phenomenon but rather a multi-dimensional process involving reorganisation and reorientation of entire economic and social systems”.
An account of the Theatre for Development process.Several attempts have been made by theatre scholars to link theatre and development whether local, national or global has a long history. According to Obafemi, (2003), “there exists an obsession among theatre and literary scholars to prove, outside the attempts by great philosophers like Aristotle and Plato Pupil, that theatre whether in the literary or performative form has a contribution to make to the development of the society. Theatre and development has a twin existence.
Like development, theatre derives from source-people, the community, playing roles and finding expressions and solutions to life threatening problems”.According to Mwansa, (2006), “Theatre for Development emerged in the late 1970’s as a social movement that disseminated information on issues of development at grass root level in the developing world”. In order to evaluate the role of TFD, it is important to understand the nature of the theatre and the concept of development. Theatre serves a social function by educating community members.
According to Ngwainmbi, (2004), “theatre helps to depict social reality and encourages audience participation”.How TFD helps drive community development.Theatre for development emphasises collectivism and participation and according to Olalekam, (2010), “TFD stresses community and inter-personal participation and uses existing and familiar performance forms in the various communities such as songs, dances, music, storytelling, puppetry and mime to either validate those cultural forms or services as an adequate instrument to bring about social change in those communities”[9]. The process involves information gathering, interviews and discussions, play making, presentation of the play and after presentation discussion. “For instance Wasam Manom – a Hansa phrase for play for farmers was used to examine daily problems encountered by Soba farmers who lived at the outskirts of Zaria”.A play is developed and presented before the people.
In this case theatre essentially tries to make people more aware of their situation and commits them to want to do something about it. Theatre being a non-confrontational way of addressing problems it makes talking about sensitive and even normally taboo subjects. And because of this, after a performance, people can discuss the actions of the people in the play instead of criticising individual members of the village. They can test potential ways of problem of problem solving on stage in front of the whole ‘village’ and then discuss them.
It helps shape public opinion about certain topics and moulds the public opinion in the desired direction. In this way it helps to drive community development.Zambian examples of how this process is carried out.It is clear that through Theatre for Development, everyday situations are enacted in order to illustrate the choices that members of the community have when it comes to protecting themselves from HIV/AIDS. According to a website, demotix.com, it says “fighting HIV/AIDS has remained a challenge in Zambia, where at least one out of five people is HIV positive”.
According to a paper presented by Mwansa, he says “in Zambia, Theatre for Development is a major tool for investing and disseminating information and organising people in matters of development and has in the last four years been part of the campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS. It is located in government ministries, the work of many Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and over 400 theatre groups participate on either full time or part time basis”.Theatre has been used to fight HIV/AIDS in Zambia. PEPAIDS and SAPEP work with many rural communities in Mazabuka and Monze. In the absence of television and the internet in these rural areas, theatre is the best and most effective way of informing whole communities about issues around HIV/AIDS.According to a website, charityinsight.
com, “the MARS Theatre group are an AIDS Action Club based in Ndeke township in Mazabuka. They not only use drama to raise awareness of the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS, but also to reduce the stigma associated with the illness. Often when they arrive in a community there isn’t an audience waiting to great them. However, they know exactly how to get the audience to come to them. With large drums and loud energetic voices, three members of the group start drumming rhythmically, while the others sing and dance”[13].
This kind of community engagement is unbelievably effective as it doesn’t take long for a steady stream of people to arrive. Once they have a captured audience, the group would begin a series of sketches. One subject covered would be that of preventing mother to child transmission. The plays combine emotive topics with lots of humour and are followed by a facilitated question and answer session with the audience. The group would speak to the community about where they should go for voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and why this is important.The second example is the use of drama to teach people about family planning.
According to a website, www.comminit.com, “cultural norms and traditions remain one of the key barriers to providing sexual and reproductive health services globally. Zambia, with one of the world’s fastest growing population, is no exception”[14].
MSI Zambia and the national non-government organisation Africa Directions is using theatre as a tool to address the cultural norms and traditions in an effort to save women’s lives by providing women with accurate, objective advice about their sexual and reproductive health care choices so they can access the full range of short-term and long-acting or permanent methods of voluntary family planning, as well as legal, safe abortion services. According to MSI, “Zambian women experience high rates of unintended pregnancies and barriers in accessing services; an estimated 30% of the maternal deaths in Zambia are a result of unsafe abortion”[15]. In regard to this, an outreach trip to the Kalikiliki compound of Lusaka, with its limited access to health services benefits from drama that is used to spread the family planning message. The peer educators speak to the audience about family planning and safe abortion. Women are given printed leaflets and referral slips to MSI Zambia’s mini-clinic located in the nearby compound, where family planning services are available free of charge.
There is no doubt that today Theatre for Development is widely viewed as both an effective and appropriate medium for communicating development-oriented information. It is certain that Theatre for Development brings people together and creates an arena where a community can engage is discussion about, issues and difficulties whilst simultaneously providing an occasion for communal entertainment.Another thing is that face-face dialogue element enables people to respond immediately to issues raised and involves everyone in problem solving discussions. Furthermore, Theatre for Development is used as a means of bringing people together, building confidence and solidarity, stimulating discussions, exploring alternative options for action, and building a collective commitment to change.
According to a paper presented by Kabugo (July 2008, “it may be difficult to quantify the impact of the arts in terms of concrete social gains because arts assessments lack evidential weight when judged by conventional standards. It has been found out that, there is no gainsaying that arts have contributed to the development of mankind. But in situations where there is profound distrust, fear and anger, theatre (TFD) is a useful medium to bring people together to share stories that trigger emotional response”[16].From this essay, a conclusion can be made that Theatre for Development can facilitate awareness of selfhood, thus enabling those who are marginalised to look critically at the contradictions within their social situation. In conclusion, it is clear that Theatre for Development incorporates a broad range of practices, which can be applied in a number of ways and that the extent and legality of a project’s impact is heavily affected by those various factors
