In September 2007 Ann and Bill went to the Kigoma region
of Tanzania in response to a request for assistance in what turned out to
be an amazing project concerning the reproductive rights of women in urban
and rural settings as well as refugee camps and schools in that region.
We are now in the process of seeking funding. All the Reseach and months
of planning that the partners have done and the research that we carried
out has produced huge quatities of data, testimony, suggestions and activated
solid partnerships. The results of the test theatre techniques that we used
as research methodology and the participant led desgn process will inform
our proposal for funding .
Our impression, so far, is that this will be an extremely
worthwhile project with a compelling and clear need expressed by potential
beneficiaries
A hectic schedule of meetings and visits were pre arranged
so that Ann and Bill could experience the environment that the projects
operates in and hear directly from potential beneficiaries what their problems,
needs and suggestions of solutions are. Some of which is described below
Members of the Women's Promotion Centre, KIWODA, Small World
Theatre, and some of the volunteers
3 groups of women
In the left hand picture they traveled from 11 villages
to be at this school to tell us their needs. The centre picture they gathered
from 2 villages to participate and in the right hand picture they came from
a large area around the village.
Below there are three traditional midwives who explained
the shortages of equipment, space, infrastructure and training
with Ann and Martha as "bookends"
Still picture theatre technique in the villages used here to help us understand the problems and see if these are verified by the greater community. We also used this process to see if SWT expertise would be useful in this context.
Using theatre techniques with the volunteers exploring and testing it's viability and find out more about their view of human rights
Rural
Refugee camp
Willonga
from Together for Peace and Development(TPD)
and
Abiolla reading her speech
Special
circumstances in the refugee camps exacerbate many of the rights issues
raised in other areas of Kigoma
The sun starts to set as we leave this long established camp on our long and very bumpy trek back to Kigoma.
This project is a prime case for funding. Here is a link to our donations page
click on the Celtic knot
An existing urban WPC project
Palm nut oil extraction & income generation for women in urban Kigoma
We are grateful to Wales Arts International for their generous contribution towards this visit
