DramAidE and Live Drama

This article, published in the Glocal Times, describes how South Africa's Drama AIDS Education, popularly known as DramAidE, uses participatory drama and other interactive educational methodologies within schools to equip young people in that country with increased knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the skills to inform and communicate with others about sexual health. The paper resulted from an exploratory study of DramAidE that was designed to understand how live drama is perceived and experienced by youth audiences and their teachers. The author suggests that young people like to not only watch, but also to take part in, live drama, and that this affinity can increase the chances that messages positively impact attitudes and behaviour.

According to the article, emotional messages in drama, music, and humour used in entertainment-education approaches are more readily accepted by audiences and more likely to lead to behaviour change than messages with low emotional content. It is thus reasonable to assume that live drama is useful in raising young people's awareness about HIV/AIDS. To achieve this, DramAidE uses a range of cultural activities such as songs, dance, poetry and plays, educational theatre, forum theatre, and arts workshops. DramAidE's network of peer educators and clubs are also meant to provide avenues for health-promoting communication campaigns created by young people through a participatory process.

According to the author, students who participated in focus group discussions led as part of the exploratory study used the following six positive qualities to describe live drama: "enjoyable," "good," "exciting," "interesting," "creative," and "interactive." The study suggests that DramAidE's live drama influences behaviour change amongst the students and other members of the schools and neighbouring communities who watched it. Teachers said that students had acquired knowledge on how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and prevented and were now able to take informed decisions as far as sex is concerned. They also stated that reported cases of sexual harassment, especially of girls by boys, had diminished in their schools. In their view, through live drama girls had acquired assertiveness skills and could now say "no" to demanding boys. Moreover, teachers also mentioned that some members of DramAidE who are seen as role models in their schools have greatly improved their school performance, since they want to be seen as role models in every field.

Students said that through watching DramAidE's live drama, they have acquired knowledge about pregnancy, their rights, the dangers of HIV/AIDS, how it is spread, how it could be prevented and controlled, and how to take responsible choices, avoid being aggressive, respect other people, abstain, and use condoms. Two DramAidE trainers said that, as years went by, they had observed changing behaviours of the learners who watch and take part in performing the drama pieces. They stressed that the drama pieces showed the learners the problem of HIV/AIDS and other related harms, helping them explore the causes and find solutions. The research also found that DramAidE's participatory approach enhances dialogue and encourages young people to seek their own solutions to problems facing them.

The article concludes that DramAidE was able to communicate messages about serious matters in an entertaining and more acceptable way. However, the study also suggests that young people do not get information about HIV/AIDS from the media only, but also through the social networks through which they interact. This signals the importance of interpersonal communication for health promotion. The research points out that communication strategies meant to raise young people's awareness about HIV/AIDS should never use a single communication channel but, rather, a variety of them. Radio, television, theatre, printed media, training opportunities, and hospitals, as well as family members, counsellors, teachers, neighbours, and friends are part of such a variety.

The main advantage of live drama suggested by the exploratory study is that it offers a participatory environment, where both the entertainers and those being entertained engage in the action together. This is impossible with recorded radio and television. Live drama provides a high degree of emotion and brings the members of the audience close to the cast.

This article is based on the research document entitled Performing Arts for HIV/AIDS Communication: Some strengths and weaknesses - A case study of DramAidE's live Drama in KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa (by Fredrick Mugira, September 2007).