Group Education Manual - Peace Corps Wiki

Handout 11B: South African Street TheaterSouth African Street Theater Challenges Men's Perceptions of Violence, HIV and AIDS, and GenderEqualityStory by Kristy SiegfriedAdapted for the Stories from the Field series by Nina BratenIt's evening rush hour at the railway station in Tembisa and a train from Johannesburg has just deposited hundredsof commuters onto the platform. The sound of raised voices and signs of an impending scuffle persuade many ofthem to linger for a few moments.A circle forms around the drama unfolding in this most public of public places. The voices belong to a man and hiswife and two other men. The man is accusing his wife of having an affair with a colleague accompanying her on thetrain. He knows this to be true, he yells, because last night she asked him to use a condom. The man movesthreateningly toward his wife, but her friend blocks him and the two men start shoving each other and exchanginginsults. The crowd starts to look uncomfortable; some laugh nervously, others mumble disapproval, but no onesteps forward to intervene. Finally, some spectators become irritated by the commotion and break up the crowd.There is no time to inform them that the scene they just witnessed was a performance and the participants wereactors.The young performers belong to EngenderHealth's partner, the Youth Channel Group (YCG), a Tembisa-basednongovernmental organization that uses "ambush theater" to educate and mobilize their local community on issuesrevolving around HIV and AIDS, domestic violence, and gender inequities.The goal of the performance was to spark a discussion with the onlookers about condoms and gender-basedviolence. But part of the nature of ambush theater is its unpredictability."It went well, except we didn't have a chance to distribute the condoms," commented one of the performers.Undeterred, the troupe of actors and facilitators moved down the road and re-enacted the scene in front of an allmalehostel. This time, the actors had time to freeze the action and reveal that the scene was fictional. Some of theonlookers felt deceived and moved on, but others lingered to engage in debate with the YCG group and to acceptthe free condoms they handed out.Another performer asked some of the male onlookers how they would react if their wife asked them to wear acondom."I would think that she has a disease," responded one man."I can't satisfy my wife while I'm using a condom," said another.When asked whether the performances had any impact on them, one man replied: "It gives me some knowledgeand it makes me think about it."YCG's founder, Dan Sebetha, has had plenty of opportunity to see how effective this type of performance art canbe, especially in reaching young people. He started the group with four others in 1996, with the goal of using dramato address crime. The focus shifted to HIV and AIDS and gender equality in 2001, when the group partnered withEngenderHealth.92