CHIPAWO is a non-profit-making arts education Trust. It aims to develop and educate children through the arts. In addition to the Programmes Unit, CHIPAWO has a Media Unit, which produces television programmes and documentaries, the Academy of Arts Education for Development, which offers Midlands State University Diplomas and various short courses  in Performing and Media Arts and the Musical Instrument Manufacturing Unit, which makes and sells traditional musical instruments.

1. PROGRAMME
(DIRECTOR OF CEREMONIES - EVIS MATAMBA)

1.ARRIVAL OF GUESTS
2.WELCOME BY HEAD GIRL OF MABELREIGN GIRLS HIGH
3."THE AFRICAN CHILD" AND THE AFRICAN ANTHEM: "ISHE KOMBORERA AFRIKA/NKSOI SIKELEL' IAFRIKA" - SHORT PERFORMANCE BY GIRLPOWER
4.INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY THE CHAIRMAN OF CHIPAWO, MR S.J.CHIFUNYISE
4.INTRODUCTION TO PARTICIPATORY THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS BY THE ACTING PERFORMANCES DIRECTOR, DR ROBERT MCLAREN
4."ACT OUT" - PARTICIPATORY THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS DEMONSTRATION5. SPEECH BY THE GUEST OF HONOUR, HEALTH AND HIV AND AIDS ADVISOR OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, DR PAOLO BARDUAGNI (REPRESENTING THE AMBASSADOR)
6.THE SMALL THINGS THE EU CAN DO FOR SCHOOLS - J. KUSENA, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESS, CULTURAL  AND INFORMATION OFFICER
7.SPECIAL GUEST - MS LUTA SHABA, DIRECTOR OF THE WOMEN'S TRUST AND AUTHOR OF "SECRETS OF A WOMAN'S SOUL"
8.VOTE OF THANKS-MS MEMORY ZIDAKA, GIRL POWER

REFRESHMENTS

2. CHAIRMAN OF CHIPAWO'S REMARKS
The project we are observing today is being conducted by the Girl Power Centre, which is in itself a project of the Programmes Unit of CHIPAWO.

CHIPAWO is a non-profit-making arts education Trust. It aims to develop and educate children through the arts. In addition to the Programmes Unit, CHIPAWO has a Media Unit, which produces television programmes and documentaries, the Academy of Arts Education for Development, which offers Midlands State University Diplomas and various short courses  in Performing and Media Arts and the Musical Instrument Manufacturing Unit, which makes and sells traditional musical instruments.

The Girl Power Centre is an all-girl arts education centre which concentrates on producing high-power performance by girls and providing education on issues of importance to growing young women. It also has a media component as well as this Participatory Theatre Communications pilot project which is to be presented to us today.

CHIPAWO needs to raise funding to pay the basic costs of the Girl Power centre as well as to develop Girl Power as a concept in the Youth Programme, in other words among young women who have graduated from CHIPAWO and are no longer at school. CHIPAWO is also aware of the need to pursue similar projects with boys and young men.

One such project that CHIPAWO is trying to raise money for is a professional youth theatre production later this year of Lutanga Shaba's book, 'Secrets of a Woman's Soul'. In order to develop and train a professional youth theatre in Zimbabwe, CHIPAWO stages an annual youth production at the Reps Theatre where young professionals not only act the play but are also responsible for every other aspect of theatre production - stage management, set design and construction, lighting, sound and Front-of-House.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the European Union for their support of this project and urge them to encourage and support its growth and future development. In particular I would like to appeal to the European Union to assist us in promoting and empowering girls and young women in the arts through initiatives like the Girl Power Centre and participatory theatre communications projects of this kind.

3. DEMONSTRATION OF PARTICIPATORY THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS (EUROPEAN UNION)

ACTING PERFORMANCES DIRECTOR

I was a university lecturer in Literature and Theatre Arts in South Africa, Ethiopia, France and here in Zimbabwe for about 21 years. Being a lecturer can be a bit of a disadvantage in real life. You get so used to lecturing that whenever you try and express an opinion, people tell you to stop lecturing at them.

Well, today I don't have to worry about that. I will be lecturing. I want to give you a little lecture on Participatory Theatre Communications and on this demonstration that we are all about to watch.

First, what is Participatory Theatre Communications or PTC?

PTC is a communications methodology based in the theory of development communication. To quote the writer of one of the most well-known books on development communication: "Development communication is the integration of strategic communication in development projects."

In the Foreword to a World Bank toolkit for development project managers, Mark Mallock Brown, then Vice-President External Affairs, wrote: "These are ways of using communication to support change" and the toolkit itself emphasizes from the experience of the World Bank in managing development projects, the importance of communication for behaviour change.

Thus Participatory Theatre Communication is simply the use of aspects of theatre or drama to facilitate the process of communication for behaviour change.

Although PTC is a relatively recent development, emerging from recent advances in development communication, it is no stranger to Africa. Many of its characteristics are to be found in performance forms that existed in pre-colonial Africa, in particular in African storytelling, where the story communicates with the audience in a participatory framework for behaviour change. It is also closely related to theatre for development.

The writings of the Brazilian, Paulo Friere, in particular his book 'The Pedagogy of the Oppressed', and development efforts in the post-political independence era in Africa, combined to produce theatre for development. Like PTC, Theatre for development began as a way of using performance forms which are accessible to local audiences, in order to communicate information related to development - in other words, messages.

The history of theatre for development in Africa saw increased democratisation of the process of communication as different African practitioners, like Penina Mlama of Tanzania,  Zakes Mda of Lesotho or Chris Kamlongera of Malawi, went beyond the communication of messages. They brought it closer and closer to the people and opened it up more and more to their participation in and even the taking over of the process.

It is interesting to note, that while in Africa the influence of Paulo Freire was developed indigenously to create theatre for development and then Participatory Theatre for Development, another South American, Augusto Boal, was developing from Freire's theories a form of theatre which he called Forum Theatre, which in many aspects resembles - but is not - PTC.

It is crucial to note that what we are talking about here - and trying to demonstrate today - is communication not theatre.  These young women will be participating in a communication session in which theatre is use as a tool for discussion, dialogue and exploration of issues relating to themselves as young women and to HIV/AIDS. The rest of us will be observing this process. Forum Theatre derives from Theatre and is primarily a form of theatre. PTC derives from development and is a form of development communication.

There is one other influence on our work in preparing for today's demonstration - the famous German playwright, Bertolt Brecht. Brecht rebelled against what he called 'bouregois theatre', which existed simply to entertain a comfortable audience by providing an escape into emotion and sentimentality - a bit like modern television soap operas.  So he came up with a kind of theatre he called 'epic theatre', which was designed to make the audience think about life. To get the audience to think he devised a technique called the 'alienation effect' whereby he made sure the audience did not get lost in the story but used its brains to analyse the issues the story portrayed.

In preparing our demonstration we have borrowed one or two techniques from Brecht.

The project is derived from the need for more effective communication strategies in trying to effect behaviour change with regard to HIV/AIDS. As the basis for communication, the communication team decided to base their stragegy on a book by a Zimbabwean writer and gender activist, Lutanga Shaba, entitled "Secrets of a Woman's Soul".

The process required developing a script - not a theatre script but a communications script - which would enable the team to use the experiences and choices in the book to open up a participatory dialogue with young women on gender and HIV/AIDS. This script was tested with three trial sessions, at Vainona High School, Pakare Paye in Norton and SOS Children's Village in Bindura. The lessons learnt from the trials were then used to modify the script and prepare it for today's demonstration.

In addition to the theatre communicators' ability to communicate the experiences and choices of the book through acting them out, one key to the success of the process is their ability to respond to the situations that are brought about by the participatory acting out. These are not rehearsed - they cannot be. And so the theatre communicators, as in the old Commedia del'Arte, have to be able to improvise and cope with the unexpected.

Another key is the ability of the Facilitator to guide and direct the communication process. Again this cannot be rehearsed - and its success will depend on the Facilitator's ability and above all experience in handling this form of communication. Experience takes time. The Facilitator today is young Chipo Basopo, the CHIPAWO Head of Programmes. Like all of us, she is still learning her trade.

There are one or two rules.
1.Only these girls will participate in the communications process. The
rest of us will be watching.
2.No teachers should participate.
3.This is meant to be for women only - the men present are only here because this is a demonstration. In the field the communication process should take place with only women present.

Please note that today the theatre communication will be in English. The participatory process however can be in either English or Shona. This is being done because again it is a demonstration. Obviously for effective communication in many situations, the whole communication process will take place in Shona.

And now for the demonstration of the Participatory Theatre Communications session itself The first phase of the communications process: Familiarisation.