Child Rights Theatre for Development in rural Bangladesh: a case study

Abstract

The authors facilitated a Theatre for Development training workshop for Save the Children UK with a number of children in three villages in northern Bangladesh in 2000. In 2005 they revisited the young people, unofficially and informally, to assess for themselves if there had been any impact of the TfD on their lives. They asked what the young people remembered of the TfD process in 2000, and what changes had taken place in their lives since that workshop and also questioned them about the failure of Save the Children UK to follow-up with more training. The replies of the young people prompted the authors to consider the relationship between impact and follow-up; and the paper then analyses the problematic relationships between the international non-government organisation (NGO) that funded the project involving TfD, the local community-based organisation (CBO) that implemented the project, the external facilitators of TfD and the poor children who were the target beneficiaries. This analysis raises questions about the sustainability of TfD within the present structure of international aid and development. The authors conclude that the process must go beyond the euphoria of an ‘event’ and address the crisis of unfulfilled expectations by following up the initial work; and they emphasise that young people from very poor, marginalised communities need economic support for their material needs to accompany the facilitative support provided by the TfD process.