Linking science and theatre to empower communities

The 'Gangavazi' project, a collaboration between the University of Exeter and the NGO S.A.F.E., used forum theatre in ten coastal Kenyan communities to address extreme weather impacts. By allowing community members to co-direct and change the outcome of a play based on their own experiences, the project shifted the focus from purely physical climate solutions to social resilience, such as girls' education and social cohesion. While some community-led initiatives like mangrove planting have successfully restored fish species, the document notes that these projects require further support to become self-sustainable and long-term.

• The 'Gangavazi' project utilized 'Forum Theatre', a participatory method where audiences intervene in a performance to change the characters' fates, allowing ten coastal Kenyan communities dependent on fishing and farming to devise resilience strategies based on their own experiences of unreliable weather patterns.
• Community members emphasized that social capacity and cohesion, specifically keeping girls in school, are more vital for effective resilience building than the physical interventions, such as coastal defenses, typically prioritized by climate change interventions.
• Community-led resilience activities have yielded tangible environmental results, such as mangrove planting initiatives that led to the reappearance of fish species previously feared to be extinct, although these projects are not yet self-sustainable.
• Future-oriented 'visioning' exercises revealed community anxieties regarding the long-term impacts of climate change, including potential increases in youth crime, drug abuse, and disease resulting from the loss of traditional livelihoods and plastic waste in villages.

APA

Brown, K. (2019). Linking science and theatre to empower communities. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/linking-science-and-theatre-to-empower-communities/

Chicago

Brown, Katrina. Linking science and theatre to empower communities. Global Resilience Partnership, 2019. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/linking-science-and-theatre-to-empower-communities/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Brown |first1=Katrina |title=Linking science and theatre to empower communities |publisher=Global Resilience Partnership |date=3 July 2019 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/linking-science-and-theatre-to-empower-communities/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{brown2019linking, author = {Brown, Katrina}, title = {{Linking science and theatre to empower communities}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2019}, month = jul, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/linking-science-and-theatre-to-empower-communities/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }