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Since 2015 we have been developing new models for community activism and advocacy using creative performance and community research. We have worked in partnership with local arts facilitators and community groups in Uganda and Malawi.

Our Arts Interventions bring together men and women of all ages as equals to share ideas, identify key social and environmental concerns, and use creative art forms to activate communities and authorities into developing solutions for local development challenges. We use a variety of creative art forms including image theatre, poetry, music, photography and film, dance and drama to communicate, discuss and advocate for transformative action.

Our arts interventions all begin in the same way. Community members of all ages come together and use creative art forms as a means to share and discuss issues of concern to them. Everyone has something of value to share and we work hard to make sure all participants have equal space to share their voices and ideas, regardless of their age, gender, education level, religion, ethnicity or class. Creative arts (for example drama, drawing, poetry or image theatre) provide people with new and different ways to express themselves and explore both problems and potential solutions at local and national levels.

We aim to provide communities with the creative tools to identify and reflect on local development challenges, to use research skills to explore these challenges in more depth, and then use creative forms to develop arts interventions for engaging different kinds of audience. These interventions combine performance and action-based focus group discussions to try and generate sustainable changes in practice at two different levels: amongst both communities and those in positions of power. They are accompanied by advocacy activities, such as writing to local leaders, petitions and using performance to bring stakeholders and communities together in dialogue.

To do so we have developed two key types of arts intervention: 1) Community Knowledge Exchange  and 2) Speaking to Power . In our Community Knowledge Exchange events we use creative performance to generate community discussion and solidarity around developing local actions to address key issues at the local level. In our Speaking to Power interventions we use performance to promote engagement between local communities and key decision- and policy-makers. These interventions are not designed to tell people what to do or deliver a particular message. They are designed to help people to think differently about their local community and environment and come together in seeking solutions and/or hold local leaders and businesses to account.