Interact Project - Theatre for a Change

The end of a long first week of the InterACT! project, during which time I've travelled across Accra and beyond to meet with the practitioners working for Theatre for a Change in colleges, schools and local communities. I've been 2 hours north to Amasaman and 3 hours east to Ada to meet with Nii and Collins and I've spent 4 days at the James Town Community Theatre Centre, making videos with Diana, Forster, Amanda, Susan and Reggie.

The thing that has struck me most during the week is the passion that every single one of the TfaC practitioners has for their work, their projects, the people in their local community. Reggie giving up his job to concentrate on his work for TfaC; Nii spending both Saturday and Sunday every week with his participants; Diana's commitment to the rights of women and girls in James Town.

It hasn't all been plain sailing - video encoding problems, internet outages, the terrible traffic jams that have plagued Accra after the local council shut down one of the main bus stations in the middle of town. All these things have made the week longer, more exciting and more challenging that it might otherwise have been - and seeing the final videos up on the site all the more rewarding.

The UK participants now have a week to respond to their first video postcards. I am travelling to Kumasi in the Ashanti region but will be back on Thursday to upload the responses onto the site.

All the participants here are really excited about seeing how their partners in the UK react to their first videos and we'll be meeting on Saturday to watch the responses and workshop ideas for their next set of video postcards.

All comments and feedback on the project are really welcome - please contact us by leaving a comment under any of the posts or by emailing us.


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