InterACT! uses Interactive Theatre to investigate issues central to HIV/AIDS and young people’s rights through workshops and performances. Participants examine sexual relationships and practise bringing about change in the patterns of male and female behaviour that can cause HIV infection and AIDS. The InterACT! programme is aimed primarily at children, young people and teachers who are trained as facilitators. This strategy is designed to ensure that a physical approach to reducing vulnerability to HIV is reaching large numbers of young people.

During the workshops, participants:

• learn the facts about sexual and reproductive health
• investigate the reality of their experience of gender, relationships, and sexuality
• explore how behavioural patterns are manifested through voice, movement and space
• develop communication skills to enable them to change their behaviour and negotiate their relationships positively and safely
• practise these skills in action, in challenging situations in the safe arena of the workshop.

The performances are:

• devised by workshop participants entirely from their experiences related to gender, sexual health, and HIV/AIDS and performed in community venues
• highly participatory, with audiences directly involved by being invited into the acting area to try to find practical strategies for changing the behaviour of the characters
• forums for developing dialogue with interest groups such as parents about gender and sex education and for the advocacy of children’s rights.

In the first phase of the programme the organisers:

• formed the InterACT! network of 13 partner non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the Accra Teacher Training College
• trained 45 NGO staff and teacher trainees in the use of interactive theatre as a tool for changing behaviour around HIV/AIDS
• established 14 focus groups of young people, each consisting of 15 young people and led by two trainees from each organisation.
• built the capacity of the InterACT! stakeholders' organisations to use interactive theatre
• developed information, education and communication (IEC) materials including a video, a manual, and a website
• held a 4-day festival of interactive theatre in May 2004 at the National Theatre, Accra, which was attended by 3500 people.

In the second and third phases of the project, to be conducted from 2005 to 2007, organisers will continue to build and strengthen partnerships in an effort to extend and expand the programme. Outreach will be conducted in the Eastern region, Central region and Greater Accra, with the goal of reaching 17,500 young people. Hoping to ensure sustainability at school, community, and regional levels, organisers will work closely throughout this process with District Education Offices, teacher training colleges, headteachers, and partner NGOs. In the third phase, InterACT! will expand further (nationwide) to work in areas of high transmission such as rural areas and traffic corridors. In addition, they will work to form partnerships with other African countries particularly badly hit by HIV/AIDS and initiate and carry out skills exchange programmes.

The programme organisers also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ghana Education Service to provide Interactive Theatre in 6 teacher training colleges. The principals of the colleges agreed to put InterACT! on the timetable, which means that all trainee teachers in the colleges learn how to use the participatory, physical and child-friendly learning strategies. These teachers will then be posted all over Ghana to work with children and put the techniques into practice.

Organisers plan to expand its project to southern Africa, starting with Malawi and then spreading to include South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia.

HIV/AIDS, Rights, Youth, Gender.

“Behaviour which may have seemed fixed becomes open to the possibility of being transformed. In this way, Interactive Theatre is a rehearsal for changing behaviour in life, and contributes to participatory health and sex education, awareness raising, stigma reduction, self-advocacy by young people and bottom-up policy making.”

Over 12,000 young people in the economically poorest areas of Ghana have been involved in workshops and performances and many report significant changes in their understanding of the disease, the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS (PWLHAs), and gender and sexual behaviour, including negotiating condom use and voluntary counselling and testing (VCT).