Bennde Mutale Theatre Group

The Bennde Mutale Theatre Group develops productions that are designed to be open-ended and flexible, in order to encourage audiences to engage and participate. The dramas are designed to raise awareness about climate change and explain the linkages between climate change and local environmental and health issues. They also aim to provoke discussions around sustainable natural resource use and how people can act locally to improve their livelihoods.

Organisers say it is important for people in remote areas to understand what climate change is and where it comes from, because it explains why they have had five years of drought, or why even the elders who are very experienced in agriculture cannot predict the weather seasons anymore. The productions also focus on climate change adaptation, and finding local solutions to environmental problems.

RAUK hopes the productions will instigate debate, saying that theatre has been an effective strategy because people dare to stand up and discuss sensitive issues in front of the whole community. Organisers say this feedback helps find solutions the community actually has ownership of. The group performed in four languages and toured around the region for two years. At the moment the Bennde Mutale Theatre Group has become a part of a bigger national theatre team, a project hosted by RASA, touring South Africa and performing to rural communities on similar issues.

Climate change, Rural development

RAUK has just completed a one year project in Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya, where it worked closely with local NGOs and rural communities on raising awareness on climate change and related issues but also to detect local knowledge and experiences around climate change adaptation by using community photostories, educational theatre and participatory docu-dramas.

Resource Africa is a United Kingdom-based non-profit organisation involved in supporting rural livelihoods and improved local governance based on sustainable use of natural resources in Africa.