‘A Changing Masaka City’: A 4-part radio drama by Arts Applied Uganda

‘A Changing Masaka City’ is a four-part radio drama series written, performed and produced by Arts Applied Uganda. The four episodes tackle environmental justice, climate change, resilience, and community visions for an ‘ideal city’. They explore key themes that emerged out of a community applied theatre project co-facilitated by GENERATE and Arts Applied Uganda in Masaka in November-December 2022.

We invited three of Masaka’s most marginalised communities to participate in a series of eight applied theatre workshops to explore, reflect on – and discuss actions to challenge – how social, environmental and climate justice intersect within this new city in Uganda’s Central Region. 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, rising costs of living, energy injustice, food and water insecurity and so on. Our workshops brought together people with diffabilities, adolescent mothers, and older people to capture the lived experiences of these challenges, the resilience and agency of these communities, and importance of social solidarity and collective action.

Arts Applied Uganda took these learnings and wrote four radio dramas, creating fictional characters and plots to communicate real stories and events shared during our workshops. They sought to share insights into environmental, social and climate injustices with the broader public, highlighting the importance of social solidarity and challenging discrimination and social exclusion. The radio dramas were written and performed in Luganda to maximise accessibility across the region.

With the support of Antonio Kalyango, a local journalist and environmental activist, the drama series was aired on Radio Buddu – Uganda (98.8 Masaka, 95.5 Kampala), the oldest radio station in Masaka City, on Wednesdays at 9.10am as part of the show ‘Program Sserukeera’ (‘The Morning Drive’):

Environmental Justice (13 September 2023)