Providing a Stage for Youth Advocacy
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| An actor and audience member interact during an outdoor performance in Nabatieh.
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"In Nabatieh, youth have no means to express themselves. The municipality has even restricted the opening hours of the Internet cafés, one of the rare outlets where youth usually spend their time," so declares Fatima Abou Zeid, a member of the Youth Network for Civic Activism (YNCA), a local nongovernmental organization (NGO).
In spite of the restrictions on civic activities, Fatima and other YNCA members are beginning to challenge the closed and conservative nature of their city. They are using theater and other advocacy tools to make their voices heard and address sensitive issues in their community.
With support from USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives, YNCA provided local youths with training on advocacy. The trainees then canvassed neighborhoods in Nabatieh to identify resident concerns and through interviews and surveys found that drug abuse and solid waste disposal were problems long-neglected by the municipality.
Building on these efforts, YNCA enlisted Zukak, a youth-led theater group based in Beirut, to provide its members with theater training and help them develop an interactive play to address these issues.
YNCA twice staged the work at its facility, attracting community residents and civil society representatives to performances that not only addressed the youth-identified community problems but also included messages about larger issues—such as individual rights, authority, freedom of expression, and corruption.
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"Youth should start by changing themselves. We should believe in our capacities and unite our efforts; just like the wooden sticks, you cannot break them if they are assembled."
—Fatima Abou Zeid, youth actor
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"Theater gave us the ability to speak," said 19-year-old Hamsa Abou Zeid. "We brought up issues that we didn't dare to talk about before, and it helped us raise awareness [of other] issues."
Further demonstrating its credibility as a civic actor in Nabatieh, YNCA also organized a roundtable discussion on the solid waste problem. The 20 NGOs attending the discussion acknowledged YNCA's role in filling a critical gap in civic engagement and decided to hold a follow-up meeting to discuss additional steps to improve solid waste management in the community.
For further information, please contact:
Marialice Ariens, Program Manager, 202-712-4031, mariens@usaid.gov
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