Fighting stigma through drama

Drama is a medium that has been trusted for ages when it comes to dissemination of messages or any type of advocacy work.

Owing to its effectiveness in delivering mass messages, organisations and individuals often resort to drama as an ideal platform to deliver their message. Whether it is radio, stage or television drama, the medium has rarely been faulted. 

It is for this reason that Malawi Paralympic Committee has collaborated with the Story Workshop and the University of Malawi’s (Unima) School of Arts, Design and Communication to produce the tailor-made radio drama series Zimachitika.

Under the project, Parasport Against Stigma on People With Disabilities, the three organisations are producing a mini drama series on disabilities, sports and stigma.

Unima School of Arts, Design and Communication dean Mufunanji Magalasi says the university is pushing for outreach for national development by offering social development communication creations to boost inclusion of people with disabilities.

“It is through awareness campaigns such as radio drama series that we can show the people that disability is not inability. By doing this we can show that people with disabilities can take part in disability sports both locally and internationally,” he said.

On Saturday, the three stakeholders held a script reading session in Namiwawa, Blantyre to appraise each other on the progress made in developing the radio drama series.

The stakeholders also wanted to get advice on technical accuracy input and appropriate language use from the Malawi Paralympic Committee.

Magalasi said as a typical participatory edutainment and development communication approach, the reading gave representatives of various bodies  a chance to make their input on the script for further development.   

He said: “These messages are crucial in different areas as regards changing the narrative on how people view people with disabilities. The first being that it enhances awareness that people with disabilities can take part in sports.

“We have chosen the medium of the drama because edutainment is effective because there is an element of entertainment and at the same time there are lessons that come out of it. When you tell a story through characters, these characters have emotions, empathy and everything.”

Malawi Paralypic Committee president James Chiutsi said it is clear that a big section of the coungtry’s population is not aware about sport for people with disabilities. He said they have been coming up with a number of strategies to ensure that people are informed.

“This includes information on how they can get involved in several areas of the sport such as coming in as stakeholders to provide support as well as athletes themselves who would want to participate in the sport. We have used different media to ensure we get our messages across,” he said.

Chiutsi said by engaging in the drama series, they are going a step further to ensure messages about parasports are heard. He said this is an important strategy because a lot of people both in rural and urban setups listen to the radio.

He said: “Drama is very important. When a concept is dramatised, for most people it sinks in. Most people will hardly forget something which was delivered in the form of a play more than any type of formal communication.

“We expect the number of athletes taking part in sport for people with disabilities to increase, to facilitate a passage for people to reach out to us to be part of the games and we also believe there are some stakeholders willing to help whom we have not successfully reached out to.”    

Story Workshop executive director Peter Pangani said it was important to share the script with the stakeholders to solicit their input so that the end product is acceptable and use language that is acceptable.

“We have prepared a drama script within the context of parasport. We are responsible for doing the scripts for the radio play. All the processes have been finalised and possibly we expect to start the airing of the series next month. The series will run for six months,” he said.

Unima, Loughborough University and International Paralympic Committee in conjunction with the Malawi Paralympic Committee have been implementing the Parasport Against Stigma on People With Disabilities project since 2020 with funds from UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office.