16 Days of Activism
The year 2009 sees the 16 Days of Activism campaign reaching its 10th year milestone. Celebrated from 25th November (International Day of No Violence to Women) to 10th December (International Human Rights Day), the campaign has been instrumental in generating awareness on violence on women and children, and society as a whole.
However, to many people this campaign is being seen as a government initiative, and not something that we should all (as individuals, and corporates) take responsibility and accountability for. We leave it up to the government to make choices for us, in terms of what is considered violence against women (and children), as well as what is considered human rights violations. The only time that we take a stand is when the same government has 'wronged' us. We need to take a step back, evaluate and decide what it is that we, as a people, stand for, and how we, as individuals, will fight the scourges of violence to women and children, and also of human rights.
What are your thoughts and feelings around this campaign? Where do you go to discuss burning issues that you believe are worth talking about, but are not given the forum to do so? Do you believe that you need to be heard, that you have possible and practical solutions to the problems surrounding women and children abuse? How would you like to be given space to do just that, without any formal limitations?
Allow us to introduce ‘Open Space’ – a platform we use with Forum Theatre to give people room to address complex and possibly controversial issues, and achieve meaningful results quickly. The Open Space methodology allows for people to touch on issues they would normally touch on during formal meetings, i.e. during times of conflict, complexity, diversity or times requiring short decision-making.
Let us get together during the 16 Days of Activism and use this session to talk about the various topics relating to the 16 Days of Activism and reach decisions quickly. We combine Open space with looking at fundamentals of ‘stop; start; continue’. In other words, once we have started the discussions, what is it that we would like to stop doing, i.e. “I want to stop being an absent father”; what is it that we would like to start, i.e. “I want to start spending more time with my family”; what is it that I would like to continue, i.e. “I want to continue doing more for my community”.
This style of theatre also seeks to find solutions to the issues that were raised, so that at the end of it all, we walk away knowing what it is that, as individuals, as team members, and as society, we need to do to get rid of the abuses against women and children, and human rights violations.
Imagine getting together once again (at a later stage) to measure how far each of us has gotten with this campaign, were we to do this on an ongoing basis, instead of looking at only talking about this at the end of each year. This method allows for ongoing participation, ongoing introspection, but more than that, the open space, used in conjunction with the 16 Days of Activism, allows for personal growth, which leads to the growth of the team, and then society as a whole.
Outcomes of these Interactive Change Theatre techniques:
- The creation and building of a shared and safe space to actively express, explore and for community building (be it at work, or through our interactions within our homes). Through healthy communication, we become self-aware, and aware of others;
- The safe and dynamic space created through these techniques allow each person to actively explore their own patterns of interaction that do not work, and to find possible yet practical and realistic solutions;
- We will work together to work through the as-is, i.e. our current situations; determine our ideal to-be, i.e. the situation we would like to find ourselves in (realistically speaking); and the various steps that will lead us to/through this transformation, i.e. moving from the as-is to the to-be situation;
- Use our bodies to (comfortably and actively) express ourselves to others;
- To see how our private, work and social lives impact others through our constructive, and destructive, patterns;
- To make vocal our silence, and to provide our silences space to become visible.
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