Project Anna: Drama for HIV/AIDS Prevention  REMIX 

Project Anna is a partnership between BamatMabat Theater for Social Change and Garisco (a Tanzanian based non-profit that works with youth at risk) to train local professionals (teachers, social workers, etc.) and peer educators to use street theater and other dramtic techniques for HIV/AIDS education and prevention in Tanzania, East Africa. The International coordinator of Project Anna, Talia Weiss, visited the Dar es Salaam and Kisarawe districts of Tanzania for one month in Summer 2009. During this time, she facilitated four street theater groups and trained two professionals. BamatMabat intends to make this a longitudinal project by providing workshop leaders on a regular basis to offer hands-on training to Tanzanian professionals.

Project Anna differs from other street theater based campaigns combating HIV/AIDS as it is intended to:

1. * Train professionals in the method of street theater thus enabling the groups to function on their own without the constant interference of outside workers. The arrival of outside workers is usually costly, less sufficient, and can be seen as an intrusion by the natives. Professionals indigenous to the region know the resources available, speak the language, and are familiar with the culture and therefore would be the ideal and effective candidates to educate about HIV/AIDS prevention. This is as opposed to forces from abroad who staff most HIV/AIDS campaigns.

Additionally, the training of local professionals allows the street theater groups to be sustainable and independent of the program's completion. Thee of the four groups started by Talia in Summer 2009 are still active today and one of the trained professionals (a nurse who works with children with HIV/AIDS) began an additional street theater group on her own.

2. Train and produce peer educators. Due to lack of sexual education in the school system and low number of teenagers enrolled in school, most HIV/AIDS education ends up being inadvertently peer based and is therefore grossly erroneous. It is important that youth who are seen as leaders in their community immediately ascertain correct information.

3. Reach areas (such as Kisarawe) which have yet to have seen successful IEC programs.

Please see the attached document for the entire project proposal.