SAFE PWANI (COAST)

SAFE’s first company was formed in Mombasa in 2003. Working with the best young actors and in collaboration with doctors on the frontline in the battle against HIV/AIDS, a two hour road show was developed which has now been toured all over the coast province and performed to over 250,000 people. With a message of compassion, solidarity and hope, the choral verses (ngonjeras) and full length plays, TEGEMEO and MASIKA, challenge the silence, stigma, discrimination and superstition that surround the disease. By engaging people with powerful, world-class theatre (and by making the people laugh) the inter-personal power of theatre impacts on attitudes more effectively than any other means.

SAFE PWANI now collaborates with medical facilities up and down the coast. When the Family Care Clinic was launched at the Coast General Hospital in Mombasa almost half of its initial intake of patients came to the clinic as a result of SAFE PWANI’s first tour. This facility is now the leading paediatric HIV/AIDS unit in Kenya. During recent collaborations with Msambweni and Kilifi District hospitals, they recorded three-fold and four-fold increases respectively in the number of people coming forward for testing and treatment. This is a crucial development as both hospitals have free ARV drug treatment available but not enough patients coming forward to receive it.

“We must not keep the children in darkness. They are coming, and they are seeing and they are learning.” – Safe Coast member


“When my brother was dying he started to cough, and I wanted to run away. Then I remembered what you had said in the show and I held him, and I held him when he died, and I say thank you.” Audience member for Safe Coast



SAFE GHETTO

In 2005 SAFE formed its second company in the Nairobi slums. Open auditions were held throughout the slums and a company of seventeen actors brought together to devise a play based on their own experiences of HIV/AIDS and life in the slums. Telling the story of one families battle to come to terms with the impact of AIDS, it has once again shown the enormous impact that free world-class theatre can have on the public. In Mathare, one of the many slums that SAFE GHETTO performs in they promoted The Blue House, a Medicins Sans Frontieres sponsored project. They estimate that over 500 people came in for testing after the five performances held there and that over 50 were immediately enrolled in their HIV/TB treatment program. SAFE GHETTO performs regularly throughout the Nairobi area and has so far reached over 100,000 people.

“When you make the people laugh, they get the message.” – Joseph Kimani, Safe Ghetto Member



“We go right into the slums, we perform in Sheng (slum slang) and tell people the truth.” – Kamau Wa Ndu’ngu, Safe Ghetto Director



SAFE MAA

SAFE’s third company is with the Maasai in the remote Loita Hills on the Tanzanian border. This inaccessible and unique community of 25,000 people are only just becoming aware of the epidemic in their midst. Using traditional Maasai songs and storytelling a theatre piece has been developed that gives this community comprehensive HIV/AIDS health education. SAFE is also providing a condom distribution network and is advocating for free ARV care to be made available to the Loita community. At the request of the girls in the company, a new theatre piece is being developed to bring about a debate on female circumcision within their community.





ANNO'S AFRICA

SAFE’s director Bee Gilbert has just launched Anno’s Africa. In early 2007 a highly successful six-week creative workshop was run at St Johns Community School in Majengo slum offering vocational opportunities to street kids and AIDS orphans. Using members of SAFE GHETTO as trainers the children were encouraged to explore identity through their creative talents. This is to become a twice-yearly activity at the school.



DRAMA GROUPS

Due to the huge success and impact the road show has made in the towns and villages where we have performed, S.A.F.E. is developing a network of youth drama groups throughout the coast province to help us collaborate more closely with these communities. Health and drama professionals provide training for the youth groups. This not only empowers local youth, but enables us to work more closely with the medical authorities in disseminating information about a range of other medical issues - i.e. vaccination drives. It also gives us huge insight into particular issues in any given community and helps establish a long-term relationship with them. They also have the advantage of being able to reach the more isolated communities we could never reach with the road show.



“In this village, many people have been chased away for being HIV positive. Since your show everyone is asking if this is right.” – Audience member for Safe Coast



FILM PROJECTS

S.A.F.E. has created two short film pieces, which have been passed on free to the national broadcasting stations in Kenya to be shown on public television, and to the UNESCO Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (UNICBA), where they has been distributed free as supplementary health education tools in primary and secondary schools all over Kiswahili speaking East/Central Africa.

S.A.F.E’s first film, 'KANDANDA' ('FOOTBALL' - wear your boots!) was a short piece that promoted condom use. Our second piece ‘HURUMA’, commissioned by UNICBA, was longer and more complex, and centred on the theme of compassion. In Kenya, the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS is such that those infected with the disease are often chased out of their hometowns and villages by their own families. ‘HURUMA’ was extremely successful at teaching tens of thousands in villages all over the Kenyan countryside how HIV/AIDS can and cannot be spread, and encouraged compassion for friends and neighbours who were sufferers.

Fernando Merielles saw Huruma and asked SAFE PWANI to perform it in Kibera for his 2005 Oscar winning movie ‘THE CONSTANT GARDENER'. The full version of the piece appears on the DVD as a special.



IMPACT ASSESSMENT

The Ford Foundation sponsored an impact assessment in the second half of 2006. The assessment aimed to establish the impact professional theatre could have on knowledge, awareness, changes in attitudes or beliefs, intentional changes in behaviour or practices, and crucially, actual behaviour change.

The results were very powerful. Increases in knowledge were particularly significant in the areas of understanding ARV treatment (25%), realising that you were unable to tell if someone was infected by looking at them – an increase of 30%, and 40 -50% learning about Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) for rape victims. Changes in attitude included at least 20% acknowledging that people with HIV have a future and 30% acknowledging the need to protect themselves. 70 – 80% of respondents said they would be more likely to use a condom after the show, and 95% of post show respondents said they would be more likely to be tested – a huge and significant impact on intentional behaviour. Finally actual behaviour change was measured by VCT attendance rates. During SAFE PWANI’s collaboration with Kilifi District Hospital in Oct/Nov 2006 they recorded a four-fold increase in patient attendance, with two other smaller VCT centres reporting significant increases in patient numbers.

The assessment shows a huge increase in knowledge, awareness and behaviour change, proving the power and impact that free world class professional theatre can have on some of the most marginalized communities in Africa, creating the debate and discussion necessary to bring about change. Click here to download.



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