Can theatre change sexual and reproductive health policy? A new project in Malawi thinks so…

It’s Monday morning, 8:30am to be exact. I’m standing inside the gates of the Theatre for a Change (TfaC) compound in Lilongwe, Malawi. It’s a sunny but chilly day.

On one side of me is the TfaC team – about 16 members of staff – anxiously awaiting the arrival of our guests.

Finally, the gates open and here they are: 14 young leaders from Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda who have travelled to Malawi to take part in TfaC’s first-ever regional training initiative, the Young African Leaders Academy (YALA).

There is singing and dancing to mark the occasion of these two groups finally meeting for the first time after a year of planning and preparation.

Advocating for young people’s access to sexual and reproductive health services

YALA’s premise is simple: we bring promising young leaders and activists to Malawi and train them as sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) facilitators using TfaC’s methodology. When they get home, working with local partners we provide them with ongoing mentoring and support so they can deliver impactful, life-changing work in their communities.

The project focuses on advocating for youth-friendly SRHR information and services. This means advocating for age-appropriate sex education in schools, youth-friendly access to contraceptives and sexual health counselling, reversing policies that ban or discriminate against pregnant girls attending school and, in some cases, advocating for access to safe abortion.

The training takes 10days. We spend the first few days building trust within the group. We use activities like Ball up! (shown in the video below) to explore dynamics of equal participation and assertive communication.

Countering the global anti-gender movement

Once trust has been built we explore the SRHR challenges facing the young leaders’ communities, which are in both urban and rural areas. We explore these challenges against the backdrop of the global anti-gender movement, which is well-funded and well-organised, and is systematically dismantling sexual and reproductive rights worldwide.

One of the project’s main aims is to counter the anti-gender movement with movement building of our own. This is about forming new networks of young SRHR activists who can work together and support each other cross-culturally and transnationally. These support networks are vital when doing work that is challenging, risky and at times isolating.

From this deep dive, we move into the process of ‘story devising’, which involves the young leaders sharing their own experiences related to SRHR topics like early pregnancy, lack of access to contraceptives and gender and sexual violence. The stories are powerful, raw and universal in their themes and hope for positive change.

We spend the next few days building storylines and developing characters based on real people from group members’ lives. TfaC’s methodology doesn’t use scripts or professional writers. Instead, we enable groups to develop and perform their own stories, in their own voices, in their own words through a technique called structured improvisation. This makes their storytelling deeper and more powerful because they are speaking out of a place of authenticity and truth.

The denial of young people’s sexual and reproductive rights

Finally, the day of the performance arrives. We invite an audience made up of Malawian journalists, politicians, NGO partner staff and members of the TfaC Board. The group performs their story for the first time, inviting the audience to replace the main character and seek justice for what has happened to her.
This group tells the story of a 14-year-old girl named Lukia who gets expelled from school for being pregnant. Her mother forces Lukia to ingest herbs to abort the pregnancy, leading to side effects that seriously threaten her life.

The audience challenges the head teacher’s decision to expel Lukia from school, the stigma and discrimination that Lukia faces from the community, and the lack of access to safe abortion services in her area. The audience also questions whether Lukia was impregnated by an adult and, if so, demands for him to be brought to justice.

At the end of the performance, the audience is asked to make commitments to uphold the health and education rights of girls like Lukia. In a very real sense, the performance is a ‘rehearsal for reality’: it serves as a space to solve real problems in imaginative ways, with the intention of applying those same solutions in real life.

Using theatre to advocate for sexual and reproductive health rights

The YALA project will run for three years and involve 40 young leaders from 10 East and Southern African countries who will deliver interactive theatre for SRHR advocacy in their communities.

A major focus will be on fostering connection and collaboration between the 40 young leaders across the region. By doing this, we hope to further strengthen these networks and facilitate the exchange of new perspectives and ideas for how theatre for SRHR advocacy can be used in a diverse range of contexts and cultures.

The partner NGOs working with this first cohort of 14 young leaders are Amref Health Africa (Uganda), Plan International (Ethiopia), Red Cross Society (Kenya), Reproductive Health Association (South Sudan) and Space (South Sudan).

We hope to generate interest and support from current and new partners to further scale-up this work’s reach and impact.

For updates on this project and other areas of TfaC’s work, please follow us on social media and visit www.tfacafrica.com.