The use of traditional forms in community education

This paper challenges the entrenched Shannon and Weaver model of communication and suggests alternative approaches to community health education. An alternative, where the emphasis falls on the receiver or 'reader', is examined with special reference to DramAidE. DramAidE is a South African state funded HIV/AIDS education programme in which plays, workshops and community days become a process through which dialogue around health issues is established between health workers and a school community. The approach is to use local expressive forms (plays, songs, poems, dances and posters) as enabling resources or mechanisms of learning and of re-enacting and retelling the 'story' from shifting positions. The issues raised about the impact on the community of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are further explored in participatory workshops with the intention of changing attitudes and developing some skills. The work is based on the premise that good health is dependent on social, psychological, economic and environmental factors. Likewise, sicknesses are states which must be seen in a holistic sense. The understanding of the meaning of health in this approach is culture bound and it is important not to separate out the physiological from the cultural. A further contention is that health, as a constituent and dynamic component of subjectivity does not refer to a state so much as to a process. This means that health is about self-image, self-esteem and self-confidence. The drama based workshops offered in the progamme focus on building self-esteem and self-awareness as a first step in making choices about healthy behaviour. Therefore, health education should not be actively aimed at changing personal behaviour alone. Young people need to demonstrate skills in changing their social environment and to this end DramAidE is forming clubs in schools that will become self-sufficient and to encourage the school community to take pride in building a culture of learning and health promotion in the school. The long term aim of DramAidE is to develop a social movement around celebrating the joy of choosing to live a healthy life style. We are asking ourselves and young people to 'Act Alive'. One strategy for mobilising young people is build an awareness of the interaction between human rights and health and thus find a common theme that cuts across differences of heritage and culture