Raising awareness through drama in Tanzania
- Country:
- Tanzania
- Organisations involved:
- Kilakala Unit for Deaf Children, Morogoro
- TanzaToto Foundation, Netherlands
- Synopsis:
Many deaf children in Tanzania face social exclusion. Declarations and Conventions that are meant to benefit these children have no meaning in poor rural communities. Most people are not aware of the fact that a deaf child may be entitled to any rights.
The Kilakala Unit for the Deaf in Morogoro town, Tanzania, has made an attempt to overcome social barriers for deaf children. In May 2003 the Unit initiated an integrated early education programme in cooperation with the Dutch based Tanzatoto Foundation. A drama group, mainly consisting of young deaf people, plays an essential role in the programme. The main aim of the group is to promote community awareness about the needs and rights of deaf children by providing plays containing useful information which are then followed by discussions with the audience. Demonstrating young deaf people’s acting abilities helps to challenge negative attitudes. The theatre group is coached by a professional drama teacher and the sign language teacher from the Unit.
- Issues encountered:
It took time to find teachers with enough signing skills, creativity and motivation to support the group. A deaf volunteer from Holland provided much needed expertise. She worked closely with a drama teacher from the capital, Dar-es-Salaam. Group members are between 9 and 20 years of age and all almost all deaf.
The group has had an encouraging effect on parents of young deaf children. They see how older deaf children are confident communicators and actors. This gives them some insight into how their own young deaf children might develop. We have organised two parents’ workshops about “first aid”. The drama group acted out some horrible accidents with a lot of humour. This caught the parents’ attention, they laughed a lot, and some parents were able to understand some of the signs and take pride in that.
The drama group members help with sign language teaching. Giving young deaf people the opportunity to teach has a positive effect: the young people realise they have a valuable skill to share and the parents realise the young people know something they do not.
The drama group is contributing to the development of well-informed and welcoming communities in which deaf children can grow up. Theatre provides young people with an opportunity to express themselves and to discover more about themselves and one another.
Seminars on AIDS are organised on a regular basis by NGOs, but deaf young people still have little knowledge about pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and AIDS. The drama group supports the young people through the process of growing up. Adolescence is a confusing period. There is little information about what happens in their growing bodies. Intimidation and harassment of girls is seen as normal. Deaf girls are especially vulnerable as they do not know how to protect themselves from forced sexual encounters. In the drama group girls learn how to overcome their shyness. It is a place where certain issues such as sex, drugs and AIDS can be acted out and discussed.
