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Apr 2004 |
Cuemba is a sleepy place situated in the middle of Angola. It
is home to about 3,000 people - amongst them a team of Médecins Sans Frontières
volunteers. The small hospital Médecins Sans Frontières is working
in is the only place providing medical services, not only for the inhabitants
of Cuemba, but also for the people from the surrounding areas – a population
of about 40,000. Since help is limited for people with medical problems in this
remote, mine-infested area, health education plays an important role. Médecins
Sans Frontières regularly organises a “health theatre” in the
villages – so called palestras – to inform people about different
health issues. Swedish nurse and field coordinator Maria Schutz explains how it
works...
| What is a palestra exactly?
Palestras are little performances about health issues which people can understand
without many words. In Cuemba we have palestras about malaria, diarrhoea and HIV/AIDS.
Most people in this area have never attended a school and use only traditional
medicines. The palestras show in a very down-to-earth way how the most common
diseases are transmitted, what the typical symptoms are and what you can do to
prevent them. Usually we give a good and a bad example – we show what to
do and what to avoid. |
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© William Wintercross
Young Angolans.
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The palestras are performed in the open air on the market place by our national
team, who slip into the different roles. Usually two Angolan colleagues stand
at the side narrating the play and giving additional information.
Can you give an example of a typical palestra in Cuemba?
Let's take HIV/AIDS. Two couples appear on the stage: Both have sex with more
than one partner – something that is reality here and a habit that we won't
be able to change. But one couple acts responsibly, always using condoms when
they have sex. Then there is the other couple. The man is also seeing other women.
He doesn't use condoms with his "girlfriends" or when he comes back
to his wife. Then, one day, his wife gets sick. She feels bad and is getting weaker
and weaker until she dies. The man also gets sick and dies. Not so the other couple.
They live happily together, have a lot of fun and stay healthy. This scenario
is quite black and white, and we are well aware that it cannot display the problem
of HIV/AIDS in its full complexity. But with a palestra like this we can transport
the basic medical messages in a way that is understandable for everybody.
How is it received? Don't people feel offended when the talk comes
to issues like sexual behaviour?
It is not always easy to find a suitable way to get our messages across without
hurting people's feelings or appearing rude. For example, how can we show in the
AIDS-palestra that a couple has sexual intercourse? They start to kiss and caress
each other but then …? Finally we found a solution: When the couple starts
to get closer, two actors raise a sheet in front of them and they are make sounds
behind it, kicking with arms and legs against it. The audience understands immediately.
We have to be as clear as possible and don't want to leave much room for speculation.
Everybody in the audience has to understand that HIV is usually transmitted by
sexual intercourse and not by kissing.
Who develops the plays?
Usually we know exactly which message we want to convey and then the whole team
looks for a suitable idea. It is an ongoing process, because there can always
be open questions or misunderstandings which were not aware of in the beginning.
Recently for example, during a palestra for malaria, my colleague – who
was acting as a mosquito – dipped his long Mosquito-nose in a water barrel
before he bit people. I wondered why and asked him later why he did so. Apparently
he believed that the malaria parasite was in the water and was transported through
the water. But this is not correct. I only integrated the water place into the
malaria theatre to show that the mosquitoes breed there. The more water holes
or swamps there are in an area, the higher the number of mosquitoes. So we needed
some additional explanations to be really clear about that.
How do you inform your audience about the plays?
We speak with the sobas, the traditional leaders, when our mobile clinics visit
the villages. So far, we have always been welcomed. The people in the villages
just love the performances. Usually there is a lot of laughing and shouting going
on. The people here live in a very remote area, there is no television or cinema
and they just appreciate the diversion and take lively part in the play with comments
and questions that are answered by our team.
Anke Stockdreher, April 2004
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The peace process between northern and southern Sudan that has been underway since 2002 has renewed hopes for an end to Africa's longest-running civil war. The conflict has cost almost two million lives, mostly civilians who have died from hunger and disease. Yet amid talk of peace between the north and the south, the westernmost region of Sudan, Darfur, became the site of a growing catastrophe in the past year. For years, MSF has assisted people in both northern and southern Sudan, providing basic health care at hospitals or through networks of clinics and health centers. Its work has included treating people with tuberculosis (TB), kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis) and other diseases; providing food; and treating the severely malnourished. MSF also delivers clean drinking water and provides sanitary facilities in areas where displaced people have sought shelter. » More | 
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