Theatre for Development in Malawi - A Movement

     Theatre for development (TfD) has taken root in Malawi in many shapes since the early 1980s.  It began as an academic movement, based in the pedagogical thought of Paulo Freire and the theatrical theory of Augusto Boal. International educators and artists brought the techniques to Malawi, and to other African countries, in the late 1970s and early 1980s and conducted what African theatre scholar David Kerr calls “experiments” in theatrical techniques. TfD experiments usually involved students from the University of Malawi’s Dramatic Arts department, which now is heavily influenced by TfD pedagogy, who would work with rural communities to create plays about community health issues.   

Mphatso leads a theatre for development workshop in Salima.

     Eventually, due to the links between TfD and health issues, TfD found roots in rural health clinics, which are funded by the government.  Each community health clinic has a government employee called a Health Surveillance Assistant (HSA) who is responsible for educating the community on health issues. Recently HSAs, like our partner in Salima, Mphatso Diyele, have begun using TfD techniques because of their particular ability to communicate with a population that has very low literacy rates and because of their ability to engage community members in participatory storytelling.

     In terms of independent TfD organizations, a number of international, mostly European, non-profit organizations and governmental entities have taken on work in Malawi to aid in cultural development. One of the best examples of international collaboration for cultural development is the Nanzikambe Arts Development Organization. The Norwegian Embassy, USAID, and several non-profit organizations helped finance the organization, which produces plays at its theater house in Blantyre, the country’s commercial hub.  Nanzikambe Arts has also created what it calls an “activator network,” which is a network of theatre artists who are trained in Theatre for Development (TfD) techniques and who are spread across the country working on social issues in the community ranging from HIV/AIDS prevention to malaria to food security. The Salima Project is incredibly fortunate to have Verepi Madise from Nanzikambe Arts joining us for our weeklong program. 

     In many ways this project is about bringing people together. Bringing people together from across international borders, from across Malawi, and from across widely differing life experiences. We're hoping that some of our drama group in Salima will continue working in theatre for development after we leave and that they will be able to make connections with the professionals at Nanzikambe. And we're certainly hoping that the documentary will serve to bring people together to do more projects like this - at the intersection of cultural development and healthcare education.