Forum Theatre Empowers Palestinian Women

by Edward C. Green, Ph.D., Anthropologist, Washington DC

Ashtar Theatre Group is a Palestinian non-governmental organization engaged in forum theatre since 1991. Since 1998, it has received funding from CARE International to stage performances in the West Bank, Gaza and Palestinian refugee areas of Jordan. Ashtar's primary vehicle for promoting critical self-analysis and change is its original production of Abu Shaker's Affairs. Since 1997, Ashtar has produced an Abu Shaker play annually, each focused on different themes of special relevance to Palestinian society. Abu Shaker 99 focused on three themes: incest and sexual abuse, child labor and the rights of the disabled. Abu Shaker 2000 focused primarily on gender inequality, early and arranged marriage, and sexual harassment in the workplace.

Evaluation Methods
I was recently asked to evaluate the im-pact of Ashtar's performances, to satisfy donors that their funds were being put to good use. In addition to observing performances and audience participation, I used systematic individual interviews and focus group discussions with members of current and earlier audiences, and interviews with a variety of key informants.

A quick review of the literature on forum theater showed that there have been few attempts to evaluate impact of this development tool over time. Often knowledge, attitudes and practice or behavior (KAP) was assessed by means of questionnaires before and immediately after exposure to a performance, looking for improvement in KAP indicators. Of course, what audience members say right after a performance might prove a poor predictor of behavior in the longer term. To help overcome this weakness, I put emphasis on interviewing former audience members who had seen an Ashtar performance between 1 and 3 years earlier.

Evidence of Change
Put simply, it seemed that most evaluations to date provided evidence of what we might call "declarations of future in-tentions." What I sought was "testimony about past or current actions" as well as "corroborative evidence of changed behavior." Perhaps surprisingly, we found quite a bit of the latter two. First, we encountered descriptions of past actions or behavior--in individual and group dis-cussions--that speakers linked causally to the influence of Ashtar.
For example:

• A woman told how she resisted a man who touched her inappropriately on a bus. In fact, she slapped him in the face. She said she would never have done that kind of thing before seeing the 1999 play.
• A woman told how a 45-year-old man asked her to marry him. She was 20 at the time and refused, commenting that seeing an Ashtar play helped her with this decision. She added that it was fortunate that her family supported her in this.
• A woman stayed at the home of a female friend for a whole week in order to help her during a crisis with an abusive husband. She commented, "We as women can act differently now, and we can help each other."
• Several women said they were working on acquiring job skills in order to achieve financial independence from husbands and fathers. They realized from seeing an Ashtar play (if they didn't already know it) that financial dependence reinforces the subordination of women
  Occasionally corroborative evidence of changed behavior was also found. For example, a lawyer who runs a legal service for refugee women reported that significantly more women came for counseling after they saw the plays. She also had evidence that the Ashtar performance motivated them to use legal services. Moreover she observed changes in attitude and behavior in the direction taught by Ashtar.

In another of several examples, members of a labor union were among the audience in 1999, when one of the themes was illegal child labor. Viewing this play empowered union members to confront an employer's association with threats that they would send letters of warning, and eventually take legal action, if employers continued to hire children illegally.

Training of Teachers
It was evident that the project has had impact beyond immediate or intended beneficiaries, for example on teachers. Ashtar has trained 12 Palestinians (8 regular teachers and 4 artists who teach in schools) in forum theater technique. These 12 now teach in schools in Ramallah and in villages nearby. They combine FT pedagogy with other more conventional theater in education approaches. Performances based on and inspired by Ashtar and FT are now found in at least some of these schools.

Furthermore, many women's organization leaders, adult education teachers, social workers, and lawyers providing legal services to women have stated that Ashtar performances have empowered and influenced both themselves and the Palestinians (often women) that they serve.

It is hoped that funds routinely be set aside for impact evaluations of this sort, so that forum theatre can become more widely accepted by major funding organizations as a tool for positive social change.

The full evaluation report will be published in the near future.
Contact: Egreendc@aol.com
Ashtar Theatre: http://www.ashtar-theatre.org

Under Pressure 7, August 2001