Kenya TEARS ~Reach a Community Through Theater~

It’s been a week since I came to Kenya.

yea, the place people say that "Hakuna Matata"

(I love the Hakuna Matata song in the movie "Lion King")

Actually people here often say "Hakuna" in Swahiri which means "it's all right"

What I felt first after a few minutes of walking was …India.

The streets in Nairobi remind me of India very much.

If I give Nairobi a nickname, perfectly it is “Peaceful India”

The breezing sandy wind

The cows on the streets

The small shops packed into compartments along the streets

The degree to which the town is chaotic

The people passing through messed-up traffics

everyone is fluent at English

and they eat food with hands (people her use a left hand though)

But it’s not so much surprising because Indian people have settled here long before people from mid-east started staying.

Actually, many Indian seems to run their business in Kenya even today.

Leaving Nairobi soon, and I came to a city called Nakuru to visit TERAS Group, a NGO dedicated to empowerment of youth and behavior changes in local community.

Raphael, who is a founder of TEARS, visited Seattle as an international fellow of iLEAP, and iLEAP introduced me to him.

Wandering from TERAS, his child is super cute:)

This time I would like to write about this fabulous organization.

The more I know about TEARS, the more I’m attracted.

TEARS stands for:

Theater for

Empowerment and

Acceleration of

Researched

Solutions

They adopt theater-based approach.

You might think, why THEARTER?

but this is quite effective and amazing way of reaching people in a community in Kenya.

By performing at the theater,

they build connections with a community

mobilize community members

provide them with opportunities of facing issues in a community through a skit   

support them to change their behaviors

they help community members to solve issues and find solutions, for example, by introducing health care service.

they call their activity Magnet Theater to distinguish from a conventional theater.

Nevertheless, they actually don't have a something like theater. 

They create their own “theater” then and there.

*Mobilization

After a survey of a community, theater members of TEARS visit the community and start moving, singing, and dancing so that they can attract attention of crowd arouse people’s thoughts like 

“What in the world are they doing?”  

Then, they mobilize people and create their own stage and own audience.

They showed me their mobilization at their office.

(Due to the capacity of data, I can upload only this short and a little dark movie.)

*Skit

After Mobilization, they start a skit. Their skit is a short play on issues the community face, such as HIV/AIDS or family planning (they do not have a script!).

Then a facilitator asks audience what is the problem and how the problem can be solved, so that audience realize, ”oh this is what is happening in our community”.

They categorize the audience into three groups: early adaptor, late adaptor and laggard depending on their reactions to a skit. 

Early adaptor is people who can tell what is the issue in early phase. 

Late adaptor is people who can tell until the end of the skit. 

Laggard is those who cannot tell what is the issue, like “Why is prostitution is a problem?” “Why shouldn’t we use drugs?” and so on. 

They are trying to educate them and encourage to change their behaviors.

a poster for AIDS/HIV prevention

encourage people to use condoms

The great thing about Magnet Theater is this is not one-way activity but interactive one. 

At the end of their performance, they ask issues that the audience want them to play on next time.

 Thus, they realize the performance for that community and by continuing to do this, they build a strong relationship with the community.

This is briefly how they reach, mobilize and change a community. Through Magnet Theater they have reached more than 15,000 youth.

Magnet theater members (not all of them)

TEARS mainly consist of there units: Job training unit, Community outreach unit, which includes Magnet Theater, and Social enterprise unit.

Job training unit is literally operating Job training for youth and composed of four departments: Fashion & Design, Fine Arts & Graphics, Music (this is rather for fun) and HP Life Digital (Information&Technology).

Mainly, because it is hard to be employed in Kenya, TEARS encourage and help them to be an entrepreneur and to run their own business. Students can learn the fundamentals of business like management and finance as well.

The nuance of the word “entrepreneur” is a little bit different from what we associate in Japan. 

In Kenya (of course not only in Kenya), we can see many street shops and traders on streets and they are all entrepreneurs.  Few people associate a vegetable store with entrepreneurship in Japan.

 Anyway, many graduates of TEARS job training are now entrepreneurs and running their own business like clothing shop, grocery shop, or as a painter.

teaching how to use a sewing machine

Community outreach unit is the unit to reach a community and operating Magnet Theater.

Social enterprise unit is operating to generate expense for outreach unit by using their resources. They produce and sell clothes, school uniforms and interior items. 

This enterprise is aimed not only to make money for outreach unit but also to create job opportunities and employ graduates of job training unit. Social enterprise unit also manage some events to provide student with opportunities for students such as music concerts.

TEARS goal is fabulous, which is:

To be a catalyst in the process of change by sharing skills, knowledge, expertise, experience & linkage

I really like this. 

In addition,

Vision:

A future where all Kenyan youth live a healthy empowered and independent life

Mission:

TEARS is dedicated to stimulate awareness and involvement of all key stakeholders in creating sustainable solutions for youth challenges at both the individual and the institutional level through life skills training, using participatory approaches and behavior change communication

They are working quite well, but still face many challenges.

I made my personal report after a week of research on TEARS (and micro loan system in Kenya) and suggested some solutions.  If interested in browsing it, I can send you haha

Anyway, I was really happy to work with such an amazing organization.

During my stay, fortunately some donors(they are from SEATTLE! what a coincidence.) of TEARS visited and I could be present at the meeting. good experience to see how donation process is going on and what donors focus on. 

Next time I will write about Micro Loan Service in Kenya…