Inter Press Service - June 14, 2003
Katy Salmon

"Traditionally, his forefather had 10 wives. There were 40 of them as children. Most of them don't even know each other.

"And you are saying to this guy, 'Look, you can't afford to have more than one wife. How can you love more than one wife?' These issues are very foreign to him," Jarret points out.

One popular way of getting such messages across is through entertainment. Story-telling is one of the arts Africans have traditionally used to make sense of their lives and to help people respond to new events and challenges.

"We have to use drama to persuade that man, without hitting him on the head that the life his grandfather lived was okay then, but not now. To make him know that (change) is to his advantage," says Jarret.

At the Nairobi Soap Opera Summit 2003, dozens of artists, writers, film-makers, producers, researchers, donors and policy makers from all over the continent met for three days to brainstorm on the best ways of "making entertainment useful".

The summit, held last week, was organised by Population Communications International (PCI), a non-governmental organisation that uses popular entertainment to motivate people to change their attitudes and behaviours.

Some of the most pressing issues in Africa today are tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic and female genital mutilation (FGM), promoting family planning and education of the girl child.

"I found that the problems and the people in Kenya are just like in Nigeria. We are all Africans. We need to get closer together. We need to meet on a regular basis and find out how far we have gone. Is this working in your area? Why didn't it work? Or, it worked here, let me try this in Nigeria," says Jarret.

Jarret has worked on Nigeria's longest-running soap opera 'Rainbow City' since it started in 1997. One of the main issues the programme deals with is the question of good governance and transparency - important questions in a notoriously corrupt country.

Programmes are made in local languages and adapted to suit the different cultures in each region.

"The north is Muslim, Hausa-speaking, a closed society. Women are not given any rights. We tried to use the programme to give a leverage to women living under Muslim laws," Jarret explains.

"In the east, which is Ibo-speaking, one of the main issues are widowhood rights and inheritance. In the west, we talked about polygamy, FGM and preference for male child," he says.

'Rainbow City' is just one of dozens of 'edutainment' soap operas being broadcast on African television and radio stations today. Others include 'Soul City' in South Africa, 'Twende na Wakati' (Let's Go with the Times) in Tanzania, 'Nshilakamona' (I Have Not Seen It) in Zambia and 'Mopani Junction' in Zimbabwe.

'Edutainment' is one of the big ideas with donor agencies right now, keen to harness the power of drama to bring about behavioural change.

Scientists have proven that when someone learns about an issue, such as HIV/AIDS, through a news report, it has no personal relevance. But when someone in a soap that they watch regularly is infected with HIV, they feel an emotional impact, as though a real friend was suffering. Because the audience relate to the characters, it encourages them to change their own behaviour.

However, the relationship between the donors and the writers can often be a difficult one.

Last year, the United Nations poured vast sums of money into filming six pilot episodes of 'Heart and Soul', a television drama set in Kenya. But the programme flopped, with writers and audiences complaining that the donors were pushing their educational messages too hard, at the expense of the entertainment.

"Donors have driven, to a certain extent, the direction of the entertainment industry and that has had a very negative effect. Our writers are being asked to create stories specifically to meet the needs of the donor agencies," says Kimani Njogu, head scriptwriter for Kenya Broadcasting Corporation's long-running Kiswahili radio drama 'Ushikwapo, Shikamana' (If Assisted, Assist Yourself) and regional representative for PCI.

One of his aims in convening the summit was to create a book about the 'edutainment' experience in Africa that can be used as a reference material.

"It will be talking back to the donors, saying 'Please allow us to be creative people so that our creative potential can be maximised'," he says.

Andrew Whaley of 'Mopani Junction' is one writer who has enjoyed having the chance to meet with donors at the summit. "One tends to think of donors as being 'them out there' and the enemy and that we have to do what they say. But it's not quite true," he says.

"It's interesting for me to meet the donors and to realise that some of them are activists. They're very educated people who believe in social change. And so they really want to change the face of Africa. I think they are really well meaning. What brings us together is a sense of activism and in that you've got to find a mutual common ground," he says.

Whaley describes writing for an 'edutainment' soap like "being loaded into The Matrix".

"As writers, we had to learn a whole behavioural science methodology. We have to learn about behaviour change communication. That's a really scientifically worked art," he explains.

"For creative people who are used to telling their own stories, it's problematic at first to work within the structure you're given and still hold on to that imaginative process. Not have the story disrupted because you have to make a particular point or send a particular message," he says.

"It's tempting to try and obey the rules. But it's important to have confidence in your own storytelling ability so that you come into this business - and it is business - with a clearer sense of who you are," he says.

"And I think the donors will appreciate it a lot more if you have that confidence. They don't actually want to see a slavish interpretation of their methodology. They want to see you use the basic rules and tools and try to make vibrant stories in a local language, with local references and idiom."

'Mopani Junction' follows five characters going through a transition. The story focuses around one family that is having all sorts of troubles.

"Young Jackson has inherited a business empire and is trying to expand it. It's about this guy who sometimes behaves like an idiot and is being manipulated by a very powerful businessman. That's got nothing to do with behaviour change. Those kind of entertaining aspects of the story generate audience interest," says Whaley.

Population Communications International hope to hold a Soap Opera Summit every two years.(END/IPS/AF/EA/CR/KS/MN/03)

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