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Advocacy card - Persuading through drama
Drama is usually associated with information, education and communication (IEC) more than advocacy. It becomes an advocacy method when:
- The general public has been identified as an ‘indirect target’ who will go on to influence a direct target – for example, subjects of a chief who will influence the chief
- Influential people are in the audience – for example, ministers watching a young people’s performance.
Drama can also be used in planning advocacy work, especially to involve beneficiaries (the people affected by the advocacy issue). Drama is useful in identifying and analysing issues, developing solutions and identifying targets and allies.
Drama is an effective advocacy method because it can bring a theoretical issue to life, making it emotionally powerful, more interesting, easy to understand and relevant to people’s lives. In some situations, a play is more likely to be noticed and memorable than a written report. It can be a useful way to involve a wide range of people with very different levels of analytical skills and experience at local, national and international level.
Drama by itself can be a powerful way to convey messages and persuade people of our points of view. Its impact can be increased by adding activities that involve the audience. For example, discussions can be held after the performance, or ‘forum theatre’ can be used, in which the audience is invited to explore possible courses of action for the characters.
Drama can address sensitive issues that are difficult to talk about. It can also be used as evidence to support an issue. Performances can be video-taped to share with people in positions of influence who cannot attend a live performance.
Note: All of the above can also apply to other art forms – for example, songs and story-telling.
Advantages
- Drama is an easily understood and commonly used means of communication.
- No need for literacy.
- Good for involving people at community level.
- Can be more powerful than written advocacy at any level.
- It captures emotions, personal experiences and other people’s points of view which are difficult to convey by using other advocacy methods.
- It creates an environment where controversial issues can be discussed.
- Drama often attracts media coverage which increases its impact.
Disadvantages
- It may be difficult to put new messages calling for change into traditional drama which often supports the status quo.
- It can be dominated by people who enjoy performing.
- Issues can be lost in the entertainment especially when professional actors are involved.
- It is more commonly used for IEC, and therefore the targets may miss the advocacy messages or not take them seriously.
Skills-building activity
Objective: By the end of the session participants will be able to plan and perform a simple drama for HIV-related advocacy work
Preparation time: 2 hours
Resources: ‘How to...’ Handout
Instructions
Timing: 2 hours
1 Introduce the topic and explain the objective of the activity to the participants.
2 Ask participants:
- How can we use drama in our advocacy work?
- What is the difference between drama for IEC, for community mobilisation and for advocacy?
3 Divide participants into groups of four or five people.
4 Give participants 20 minutes to plan a five-minute drama. Make sure they identify:
- An advocacy issue or problem
- An advocacy objective
- A target audience of influential people.
5 Ask them to plan a discussion by writing down possible discussion questions and choosing a facilitator.
6 Let each group perform their play and lead a discussion.
7 After the performances and discussion, lead a whole group discussion based on the following kind of questions:
- What did you like about the dramas?
- What could be improved?
- What do you think the reaction would be from the real target audiences of these dramas?
- Why is it important to have a discussion after a performance?
- What is different about drama, compared to other advocacy methods?
8 Invite any other comments or experiences of using drama for advocacy.
Facilitators’ notes
- Make sure that participants understand how drama can be used during planning of advocacy work, as well as for implementation.
- Participants can save time by using issues, objectives and target audiences identified during Section 2 in previous workshop sessions.
- Make sure the groups do dramas about an advocacy issue, not about the process of advocacy.
- Encourage participants to think of a powerful story to portray the issue – it could even be based on a true story (although they should be careful about confidentiality).
- If there is not enough time for all groups to perform to the whole group, two groups can perform to two other groups simultaneously.
- After the presentations, focus on discussing drama as an advocacy method, rather than discussing the specific issues highlighted in the dramas.
- Sometimes drama for advocacy will overlap with drama for education or awareness-raising, etc. But make sure that there is also an advocacy issue or message and influential target – refer to the definition.
- You may want to ask some pairs to do a different activity – preparing some advice (for example, ‘Try to...’ and ‘Try not to...’ tips) for using drama in advocacy work.
Example: photo
Participants at an advocacy workshop held in India role-play a drama to convey an advocacy message to an audience of influential people. Participants noted that they could convey very strong messages through drama which they would not be able to through a conversation or document.
Reference: Photo taken at an advocacy skills-building workshop for HIV/AIDS Work, India HIV/AIDS Alliance and International HIV/AIDS Alliance, India, November 2001.
Example: Persuading through drama
Advocacy issue: A shelter is required for the street children.
Advocacy objective: To provide a safe shelter for street children in Ulaan Baator by March 2003.
Target audience: Members of the city council.
A father with a drink problem spends all the family’s money on alcohol, so they go hungry. He beats his wife and daughter.
The daughter runs away to live on the street. She is victimised by other street children, and is forced to sell sex.
Eventually she goes to an uncle for help. He helps her, but says he cannot help her again.
The girl discusses her situation with other street children. They say they prefer to be on the street than with their violent families – but they want somewhere safe to sleep, where they will not be sexually abused.
Reference: Adapted from an advocacy skills-building workshop for HIV/AIDS/STI work, National AIDS Foundation and International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Mongolia, February 2002.
Advice
- Try to choose a clear advocacy objective.
- Try to know your target audience.
- Try to choose the topic of the drama carefully.
- Try to make sure that all information contained in the drama is accurate.
- Try to allow enough time for discussion.
- Try to prepare the after-show discussion as much as the show itself.
- Try to choose discussion questions to bring out the advocacy issue.
- Try to adapt the performance to different audiences.
- Try to video the performance and discussion, if possible, to share with others.
- Try not tolet the drama be only education or awareness-raising – make sure it has a strong advocacy issue or message.
- Try not to confuse the audience with too many themes and messages.
- Try not to make the drama too long. If it is longer than 10 minutes the audience will be bored, or there will not be enough time for them to discuss afterwards.
- Try not to worry about how good the acting is, the costumes, or props; the topic or message of the play is the most important thing.
How to...persuade through drama
Introduction
It is important to be clear about the objective of any drama for advocacy, and to choose a limited number of messages or themes so that the audience clearly understands which problem or issue is being highlighted and what the suggested solution is.
Drama should highlight typical examples of the issue or problem, rather than extreme cases. The involvement of people directly affected can make the drama much more powerful, if they are happy to do this.
It is usually best to use a style of drama that is popular and familiar. A standard drama, with an obvious ending, is best if the target audience are decision-makers.
Sometimes the target audience is the public, or a community, with the objective that they will put pressure on decision-makers. In this case, it is useful to involve the audience so that they can fully understand the issues and even debate possible solutions. Two key ways to involve an audience are ‘unfinished stories’ and ‘forum theatre’.
Unfinished stories
A good way to get an audience talking is to stop the drama before the story ends, leaving the audience in suspense. Then ask the following kinds of questions:
- What happened to the person in the story?
- How do you want the story to end?
- How do you think the story will end, in reality?
- Why did this situation happen?
- How can this situation be changed? How can we prevent this happening in the future?
Forum theatre
The aim is to make the audience aware of their power to change their situation, and for them to explore possible courses of action.
In the simplest form of forum theatre, a small group makes a short drama about a central character facing an urgent issue or problem. The drama shows the central character facing choices, and the possibility of changing the situation. They perform to the rest of the group, and then start the performance a second time.
This time the audience is invited to stop the action at any time and suggest alternative actions for the central character. Next, members of the audience are invited to act as the central character and try out alternative actions. They can do this a number of times, until the audience agrees that a satisfactory solution to the issue or problem has been found.
Source: Advocacy in Action
This is an extract from Advocacy in Action: a toolkit to support NGOs and CBOs responding to HIV/AIDS, developed in collaboration with the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) and published by the International HIV/AIDS
Alliance in June 2002.
To view the whole report follow this link.
To download this section, complete with graphics, in pdf format (which requires Adobe Acrobat software to read it) follow this link (file size 1.0 Mbytes).