Theater Advocacy Program with One of Our Partner Schools in Nepal

An impactful theatre advocacy program was held on 2'th November in the premise of our partner school, Sarada Secondary School Patap in Nepal. It is located approx. 25 km away from Kathmandu. We organized this program in collaboration with Circus Kathmandu and TAI Foundation.

The active participation of the students and the teachers in the play was very impressive. After the play, when the audience had to speak against the antagonist, the students came forward to express their strong opinions against the perils of child marriage. The teachers also played a powerful role in convincing the antagonist about the consequences of child marriage even referring to the laws passed by the government regarding the ban on child marriage and education rights. The play leads to a lot of meaningful discourses about child marriage that made us all think and even made the children more aware of child marriage.

The critical feedback from the teachers and community members lead to a lot of interesting aspects of child marriage. At present in this village Patap, instead of parents propagating child marriage, it is the young people (age group 14-16) marrying by their choice due to lack of awareness. It was quite appalling to hear from the principal that recently three students from the school had recently married. It was not a forceful marriage but was by their choice. So, by doing this program against child marriage in this school which itself suffers from child marriage was the best location to perform this play. It would help the students to reflect upon their choices.The feedbacks of the teachers and the students helped us a lot to reflect on the root cause of child marriage. Indeed, it was an eye-opening experience.

We look forward to collaborating and working with Circus Kathmandu and Tai Foundation and further take this advocacy program to more rural schools and community people in Nepal.