This issue of The Soul Beat focuses on information from the network related to the use of puppetry for communication on issues such as HIV/AIDS, health, and rights. If you would like to contribute your own communication experiences, please contact Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com

EXPERIENCES

1. Community Health and Awareness Puppeteers (CHAPS) - Kenya

CHAPS is a community puppetry-in-education programme of Family Programmes Promotions Services, FPPS. The programme has a network of over 350 puppeteers, from more than 40 community based puppet troupes in rural and urban Kenya. These groups perform educational and interactive puppetry performances as part of a community education initiative on a variety of socio-development issues and themes. These issues include reproductive health, HIV/AIDS education and awareness, environmental conservation, drug use and abuse, gender, corruption, transparency, and human rights. As well as mounting performances, CHAPS also provides puppetry training targeting individuals and organisations involved in advocacy, community outreach programmes and social marketing.

Contact Programs Director info@fpps-puppets.org

2. The Puppet Has a Cough - Ethiopia

The puppets are part of the HIV /AIDS Education Team at the Counselling and Social Services Center of the Medical Missionaries of Mary in Ethiopia, that aims to educate Ethiopians about HIV/AIDS. The puppets work with students to pass on information about preventing HIV /AIDS, and how to care for people with HIV /AIDS. They teach students how important it is to break down the social stigma that is hurtful for people who have HIV /AIDS and they discuss how everybody in the
community has a part to play in combating the epidemic. along with puppetry, the education programme also uses drama, music, video and other techniques.

Contact Dr Carol Breslin counscen@telecom.net.et

3. Village Environmental Assistance Project (VEAP) - Egypt

The Project aims to extend access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation in Egypt. The strategy includes ensuring a safe water supply, working to improve sanitation, and providing education and behaviour change communication to improve hygienic and environmental awareness. The project organisers developed a number of different ways of teaching communities about hygiene and the environment. Volunteers from the project villages were trained in areas such as personal hygiene, safe methods of handling water, and assessment and reporting on environmental problems in their villages. The project uses booklets, posters, calendars and puppet shows to teach people how to care for their water and environment.

Contact Simon Ingram singram@unicef.org OR Nesrine Khaled href="mailto:nkhaled@unicef.org">nkhaled@unicef.org

4. Puppet Power Team - Namibia

The Puppet Power Team is a project of the Namibian Red Cross Society that spreads HIV/AIDS awareness through puppetry. The project uses puppets to disseminate information on HIV/AIDS in an informal and often humorous way. The themes of the show revolve around how HIV/AIDS is contracted, can be prevented and how certain behavioral patterns can increase the chances of getting infected. Based in Windhoek, the team performs at schools, mines, companies and villages around the country. The show often triggers discussions about sex and HIV/AIDS, and during the performance there is interaction between the audience and the Puppet Power Team. Organisers say that the puppet show helps to break the barrier of illiteracy and language when delivering its message to the audience.

Contact Essack-Kauaria Razia secgen@redcross.org.na

5. Réseau Arts Vivants (RAV) - Niger

A network of national and international organisations that aim to promote and use performing arts, such as theatre, puppets, songs, and dance, as a means of creating awareness on different issues such as HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and forced marriage. The network works with local theatre groups, training them in performing arts and in interactive theatre, such as forum theatrem and then touring in the surrounding communities. The dramas are the result of collective work where the local artists bring in their own experience and that of the community they come from.

Contact Dominique Thaly resarvi@intnet.ne

See Also:

One Hander - South Africa

Puppet Theatre to explore Voter Awareness - Tanzania

EDUTAINMENT

6. Puppetry as a Tool in HIV/AIDS Awareness & Behaviour Change Motivation

by George Omondi Ayoma

This twelve-slide presentation comments on the use and context of puppetry in Kenya, as used to create HIV/AIDS awareness and promote behaviour change. It includes photos of puppetry programmes in Kenya for the purposes of illustration. It comments on the history of puppetry, the types of puppets used, and explores why puppets are useful for breaking down racial, social and political barriers and stereotypes. The author notes that puppets can deliver strong
messages in a light-hearted manner, without offending or frightening audiences. He comments on the training of puppeteers, particularly with reference to train-the-trainer courses and concludes with comments on combining puppetry with other media, including as a complement to folk media.

7. Testing Action Media and Entertainment Education with Autistic Children

by Jugbaran Nazliand and Eliza Melissa Moodley

'This paper explores the efficacy of an intervention on HIV/AIDS and sexuality education with autistic children. A number of autistic children are sexually active, without realising the consequences of their actions, and this makes them vulnerable to HIV infection and pregnancy.This intervention made use of entertainment education strategies, using puppet shows, theatre and music to educate autistic pupils at a school in Durban. The action media approach was used to involve pupils in the creation of the media product, in this case a music CD. This paper details the origins and implementation of the project, as well as it's efficacy.

8. Role of Puppetry in the Dissemination of Culturally Sensitive Messages in HIV/AIDS Associated Behaviour Change Communication

by Timon Choro

The presentation explores the use of puppetry as a medium for communicating health and development messages in Kenya, based on the experiences of the Africa Alive! project. According to the presenter, puppetry has proved effective in delivering messages on sensitive topics such as HIV/AIDs, STIs, gender issues, female genital mutilation, environmental conservation, hygiene, adolescent reproductive health, peace creation etc. The intervention strategy implemented was train youth groups to design and develop culturally sensitive messages to be disseminated through edutainment, i.e. puppetry, theatre for development (TFD), drama, poetry, and dance. The presenter states that puppetry is preferred because it helps to facilitate discussion on issues that are normally considered embarrassing. It is non-partisan, and gives people a chance to look at
themselves and their behaviours in an abstract way. It is also entertaining, and can attract the attention of diverse audience. The presenter concludes with recommending scaling up the use of puppetry for community education, and training and technical assistance to puppetry troupes.

See Also:

AIDS Education in Africa: The Uses of Traditional Performance


Puppets in Entertainment-Education: Universal Principles & African Performance Traditions as a Model for Interaction

STRATEGIC THINKING

9. Using Folk Media in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Rural Ghana

by Solomon Panford, Maud Ofori Nyaney, Samuel Opoku Amoah, & Nana Garbrah Aidoo

According to the article, the indigenous culture of Ghana is largely based on oral histories and traditions, much of which remains unwritten. Folk media are often used for personal as well as group information sharing, and they draw their popularity from their entertaining nature. Types of folk media include storytelling, puppetry, proverbs, visual art, drama, role-play, concerts, gong beating, dirges, songs, drumming and dancing. The power of folk media in changing behaviors in rural Africa results largely from the media's originality and the audience's belief and trust in the sources of the messages. Because folk media address local interests and concerns in the language and idioms that the audience understands, they are appropriate communication channels for rural populations. For instance, puppetry has considerable potential for health education because it is possible for puppets to "talk" about sensitive issues deemed unacceptable for an actor to discuss.

10. Establishing Puppetry as an Artistic and Cultural Medium in Eastern Africa

by Ogova Ondego

According to the article efforts to establish puppetry as an artistic and cultural medium in Eastern Africa, beginning from Kenya are at an advanced stage. In February 2004 Kenya hosted the second International Puppetry Festival in Nairobi dubbed Edupuppets 2004, a puppetry festival combining performances with skills-development workshops. According to the author, puppetry is being used by hundreds of puppeteers across Kenya to create awareness about diverse issues such as AIDS, malaria, prostitution, reproductive health, civic education, environmental conservation, and corruption. However, developing
puppetry as a genre also has some challenges, such as the perception that puppets are for children and lack of understanding about the nature, dynamics and uses of puppet theatre.

11. Reflections on HIV and AIDS Education: Forum Theatre

The article aims to present and assess forum theatre as an alternative means of presenting a combined informational and therapeutic education, on men as an underrepresented target group, which can increase the use of male condoms. Furthermore, a second objective of the article and the research done is to present a methodology and guidelines that can be
used in either other provinces of Mozambique or other cities on a global scale to build up an empirically based educational
theatre. Forum theatres aims to be entertaining, fun, and instructive and takes shape as a context for social therapy. The social therapy is established by focusing on the minds of the audience and by giving them tools for handling their situations and possibilities for changing their behaviour. Basically the idea of the forum theatre is to make the audience participate actively in the performance and make them change the situations that seems wrong. An important element in the forum
theatre is that the parts the audience can take over from the actors always represent an oppressed character and that the audience ideally can identify themselves with this character. Thereby the audience gets an experience of how their changed behaviour can lead to a change of situations for the better.

MATERIALS

12. Introduction to Simple Puppetry Techniques: Participatory Puppet Projects for Classroom & Community Activities

This publication shares the experience of ARREP, a South African based educational theatre organisation. It acts as a guide about simply puppetry techniques and provides illustrated, step-by-step guidelines on choosing puppets, making puppets and setting up educational entertainment plays with puppets. Topics include: types of puppets and their uses; the use of puppetry in education, teaching and learning; puppetry in therapy and counselling; and writing an educational script .

13. Playing for Life: Performance in Africa in the Age of AIDS

by Louise M. Bourgault

Playing for Life is a survey of African performance about HIV/AIDS. The work provides an introduction to the study of Africa through performance, as well as supplying information about a sampling of performance resources. Also, it aims to show how Africans are working to harness the energy of performance to help address the AIDS pandemic. This book focuses chiefly on the AIDS epidemic/AIDS performances in two African countries, South Africa and Mali. The differnces between the countries by most social indicators, such as economy, religion, geography and climate, colonial history, pre-colonial history, and nature and severity of the AIDS epidemic, provide contrast from one another.

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The Soul Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com