In collaboration with Arts Applied Uganda, and Antonio Kalyango, a local journalist and environmental activist, we invited three of Masaka’s most marginalised communities to participate in an applied theatre project. This comprised a series of eight workshops to explore and reflect on how social, environmental and climate justice intersect within this new city in Uganda’s Central Region. We then used theatre, collage and creative writing to imagine a more just future, and what visions of justice look like for each of the participants.
Masaka was designated city status in July 2020. It has a rich cultural and political history, but currently faces not just the growing impacts of climate change, but also those of rapid urbanisation, inadequate infrastructure, growing unemployment, environmental destruction, rising costs of living, energy injustice, food and water insecurity and so on. We aimed to better understand people’s relationship to the city, their sense- and place-making, how they navigate urban life and its challenges, the impacts of COVID-19, the ways in which gender works through their lives to shape their experiences and perspectives, what they understand of climate change and its impacts, and what resilience means to these particular communities.
Our series of eight half-day applied theatre workshops brought together 70 people with diffabilities, adolescent mothers, and older people to capture their lived experiences, their creativity and agency, and the importance of social solidarity and collective action towards social, environmental and climate justice. Our workshops were fun, introduced theatre games to build confidence, trust and solidarity, but also created safe spaces for reflection, discussion and creative expression.
Arts Applied Uganda took these learnings and wrote, performed and produced four radio dramas, creating fictional characters and plots to communicate real stories and events shared during our workshops. The four episodes tackle environmental justice, climate change, resilience, and community visions for an ‘ideal city’. With support from Antonio Kalyango, they aired on Radio Buddu, the oldest radio station in Masaka City, in September and October 2023.