Action Partner News
Sharing stories of work on the ground.
Guruparan Kumaravadivel in Sri Lanka and James Hallowell from Sierra Leone undertake a teleconference to discuss ways of working for social change in areas of conflict
When we heard that James Hallowell from Sierra Leone was attending the Kurve Wustrow Training of Trainers in non-violent conflict transformation in Germany, it seemed like a good idea to help him connect with Guruparan Kumaravadivel in Sri Lanka, who is working to further the work of the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament in an increasingly unstable environment in Sri Lanka.
James and Guru spoke of their experiences of conflict in Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka and James gave suggestions, based upon both his practical experiences in Sierra Leone and at the training in Germany, on how to work safely in conflict areas. We will hear of their discussions further in the next edition of Voice.
Kennedy Folasi in the Solomon Islands
We recently spoke with Kennedy about his work in the Solomon Islands, where he organises a youth drama group which is currently working out ways to communicate issues surrounding HIV/ AIDS to young people in the Solomon Islands.
The group is made up of young people in the community and more young people are wanting to join the group. Kennedy said that they have rehearsals for the drama group 3 times a week, but that sometimes this differs and quite often, every evening, sometimes when they don’t do rehearsals the young people come around to his house and talk and laugh and tell stories During the day, the group members play sport and in the evening they do rehearsals. Sometimes they come to his work during the day and ask him for advice about their problems and Kennedy helps them if he can and other times they just talk about the problems. Kennedy has a relationship with group members which goes beyond simply coordinating drama performances.
Kennedy’s drama group is very active and Lawrence Nodua, also from the Solomon Islands, recently wrote to us to say that he has seen Kennedy’s group performing everywhere!
Lawrencesaid: This week in Solomon Islands we have the trade and cultural show. I just return from the show ground and was amazed by the show put on by Kennedy’s drama group. There are about two thousand people watching the group dramatizing family issues. It was very funny but put across the relevant message. All of us delegates in the Solomon Islands are proud to see that one of our friends group is very active and create a very effective awareness in the public.
Marabu Tianeti Etuati is an Action Partner from Kiribati, another island in the Pacific. Marabu has received funding through the Grants Pool 2006 to organize a youth drama group to raise awareness about HIV/ AIDS in Kiribati. There was a public holiday in August in Kiribati and many villages come to spend a weekend together at one meeting place. Six villages, of altogether around 500 people, all travelled to stay at one meeting place from Friday to Sunday and Marabu’s group went and performed awareness raising dramas for them.
There are two HIV positive people in the drama group. Marabu said these young people gave their testimony to the gathering, which brought many tears. Marabu said it was very touching. There were about 500 people staying at the gathering place and many of them were young people. The group has a uniform and is very proud of their work. They hope to take their drama performances to some of the smaller, outlying islands, where there is very little HIV/ AIDS awareness.
