We have become appropriately attired Chapati experts

Since we arrived in Phase 1 of this project, many of us internationals have been awed and fascinated by how good Chapati is. We eat this incredible bread like pancake at almost every meal, our waistlines have likely suffered, but it is so worth the cost. Our team is fortunate enough to have generous cooks who have shown us how to make this magical food and also how they prepare the delicious fish we have often as well!

Margarita and Morgane with uncle in the kitchen

Fish, it doesn't look so appetising now, but trust me its really nice!

Our team also now have appropriate Indian attire, thanks to Shivagami.

Ladies and Joao

Raju with the ladies

Felimon

OMG the third week has been and gone

Our third week went so fast! In our second week we had a surprise visit from some local Forum Theater experts who had heard about the project and were interested to see what we were doing. They gave us some helpful feedback to further develop our method. Our performances were in two close communities, one on the side of the road by a Hindu temple and the other beside a families home. We found that by further developing our method we had more participation from the locals.

This week we worked extra hard to get everything done so we could take little trip to MYSORE to visit our friends there! We rammed ourselves onto the train and admired the greenery on the trip there, traveled to the village and then onto a school to see the Mysore team perform! They did very well, and its funny to see the differences between our performances. They had cows and goats wandering into their Theater, we have trucks, motorbikes and rickshaws. They have the sweet background sound of birds and animals, we have honking horns, squeaking brakes, foot traffic, street hawkers, phones, calls to prayer etc to compete with. So you can safely say the Bangalore team appreciated the peacefulness. As well as seeing the team perform, we mingled with the students, visited Chamundi Hill, the stunning Mysore palace, ate some paan, bartered at markets for silk and perfume and altogether enjoyed being able to relax and see our fellow HoS participants!

An Indian kitchen, quite appropriate we feel (literally)

Green! This was way more exciting fthan it should be for the Bangalore team

 

Special boys on Chamundi hill overlooking Mysore

Some of the Mysore and Bangalore team, some soon to be wet courtesy of Dinesh

 

Spicing it up for the 2nd week

We have finished our second week of forum in Bangalore.  Of course ,by  this stage we are starting to know our ways around the communities where we are working, the girls have saris, we have drunk alot of chai with the locals, we have experienced a Bollywood movie , a Indian wedding , sussed out our favourite cafes and bars and been one lucky team member was attacked by sheep.  Suffice to say Bangalore is a great place to be.

In our latest forums we focused on the tale of Bema and Rama and their different hygiene practices caused by different upbringings which of course had different results.

Our other forum looked at the community and the different perceptions of water from different people. A  young mother cried over her child who is sick from unclean water, and the community takes and passes the blame. The doctor comes to figure out the solution to her problem.

Here are some photos from our latest  forum:

Rama off to school to learn about washing his hands! Special.

All the  foreigners tried to speak Kannada in one of our dramas. Not sure whether the locals smiled and laughed as it was amusing or they appreciated and were surprised that we did. Our Indian colleagues tell us its the latter,  the  foreigners, the former.

Our forums are focusing on what the victims themselves can do in bad situations,  rather than passing the blame or doing nothing. The problems seem simple, but the reality is different, the people do not have a clean water supply, and sometimes do not boil or have a filter due to factors like no knowledge of disease risk, apathy or poverty. During monsoon , mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, carrying malaria and dengue in densely  populated areas , toilets are scarce, soap non-existent in schools,  rubbish is dumped everywhere, washing dishes, clothes, bodies, cooking, and the bathroom are all in the same areas so  bacteria travels easily. The communities where we have performed know about the problems but still some do not seem to follow hygiene and sanitation practices, we hope that by presenting the problems in a new way will encourage people to think about what they can do to improve their situations. We would like to know what the other teams are doing, so Chennai and Mysore, please share!

First week of performances

We have survived our first week of our project! After a week of social mapping, writing scripts, and rehearsing, we performed for the whole day of Friday the 2nd.

About 3 or 4 times a week we travel to the area that we are working in, which takes around an hour and a half-2 hours in a bus. With many potholed roads, very scary traffic and some interesting “roadrules” we are just starting to feel as if we can cross the road without our local companions. If in doubt, follow an Indian..(though your pants may not be dry when you get to the other side.)

On Friday morning we started our performances in Matha English School, with 4 performances in total. In a classroom setting we felt that the students were easily manageable, and they seemed enthusiastic to join in with us in dialogue about good hygiene and the importance of clean water. Here are a few photos.

Good boy, Bad boy- Morgane, Felimon and Joao

Good girl, Bad girl, Dinesh, Raju, Anna and Margarita

Our second performance  was meant to be in a community hall, but since the key holder did not turn up, we opted for the street and fought off rain a few times before we could start our forum theater.

Our last performance was also in the street, next to trucks, rickshaws and the like. This was our biggest crowd, and the community seemed to get quite involved in voicing their opinions. Here’s some photos..

Big thanks to Matha English school, and the local leaders and communities for being involved! Looking forward to spending more time!

Bang Bang Bangalore!

Namaste, welcome to the blog of the Bangalore team of Health on Stage, we are a team of young volunteers with the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF)young volunteers  exchange – you can read more about ASEF and its exciting projects here www.asef.org.

Our project is based on the use of Forum Theater to promote safe water practices in urban slums in Bangalore.  Our team is putting together preformances that the communities can interact with so they come up with solutions to  issues caused by unclean water, and a greater awareness of what cause diseases like malaria, typhoid and dysentry.

We have just started our project and have been exploring some slums to find out the issues and conflicts with water in the local community. We will be updating regularly with stories from our project, here is a taster from our photo collection…

 

Water water everywhere, but not a (safe) drop to drink

10th Asia-Europe Young Volunteers Exchange 2011

Hello world, check us out! 10th Asia-Europe Young Volunteers Exchange, India 2011

This is the team after enduring one hard week of training on intercultural learning, Forum Theater training, and how to survive in India. We look good yea?  Starting on the 20th August at Nava Spoorthi Kendra, we flew from all parts of Asia, Europe, and Oceania to train. By the end of the week, after much hard work, discovering what we were to do for a month, we were split into three groups of 9 to commence our projects in the urban slums in Bangalore, the industrial belt of Chennai and the tribal areas of Mysore.

Young Volunteers Exchange 2011, pumped and ready to be free!