Being the agent of change
Youth in the area of Traditional Authority Juma in Mulanje district have taken a different approach in fighting against abuses and violence that girls are facing in their respective communities. According to John Fernando of Nlapa Village, Group Village Head Ntonthola in the area of T/A Juma, Theatre for Development—TfD has a way of enhancing change as it directly involves the concerned parties in the issues affecting their community and ways on how they can deal with the issues. This made them to use TfD in engaging the people to take action in dealing with the vices in their respective communities.
John said they conduct awareness campaigns in various communities in T/A Juma where they first conduct a research to find issues that girls in the community are facing and design their play along the issues. “Basically we conduct a research first because we want to get the real issues that are happening in the community,’’ said John. “This informs the messages that should be included in the play,’’ he added. This makes the community members to actively participate in the play by among others highlighting the issues that girls are facing including the causes their impact and more importantly providing solutions. John said this is the case because people are able to relate the issues, challenges and appreciate the need for change.
Ida Waisoni from GVH Chimbalanga in the same T/A is also a trained TfD artist, she adds that edutainment is a strong tool to reaching out to people with different messages as well as advocating for change. People come to be entertained while at the same time getting different messages being disseminated. “This has really helped in reducing cases of teen pregnancies and abuses that girls face including child marriages in our area,” she said.
“As TfD artists we do not work alone, we reached out to chiefs and other groups including Mother Groups, Peer Educators and Male Champions among others and told them about our work and also how we are going to go about in the fight against child marriages and other GBV cases that girls and other people face in our communities,” Ida said adding that, “This has made our work easier as the efforts that we are doing complement each other.’’
Ida further shared a testimony of a girl whom nearly got married. According to her, the girl wanted to drop out of school and get married because she was lacking support on her education. “When she approached us, we approached Male Champions and Peer Educators to see how best she can be helped. “After meeting these structures, we agreed that we should meet the girl and her boyfriend,” she said. The two were counselled on the dangers of child marriages and had good understanding. “After the counselling session, we contributed some money for her school materials and currently she is back in school where she is doing well,” she said. Further to this the team also asked the girl’s mother to start a small business so that she can be able to sustain the support of her daughter’s education and she is now selling tomatoes.
Asked the gap that they have seen so far in their course of work, Ida and John said lack of civic education is one key thing that is hampering efforts in the fight against GBV. “One thing that I have observed is that most people do not know what GBV is as a result they are perpetrating the violence unknowingly,’’ John said. He added that there is need to intensify efforts in raising civic awareness among communities in T/A Juma so that they can be able to understand what GBV is and be able to take proper action in fighting the same.
