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The HATS Manual -> The Methodology -> Activities -> Story Sharing
Story Sharing and Identification of Issues
Objective: To encourage participants to share stories about a theme
Activity:
- Facilitate the identification of the theme/topic/issue to be debated. Focus on a specific topic of
importance to the group and target audiences. The themes are identified by the participants based on what
is important to them and their community.
- In a training workshop setting participants break up to form small groups depending on the number
of participants and time available for the performance pieces. Small group participants identify the
issues in their stories and collectively choose the story that offers more content and illustrates
the main aspects of the problematic situation to be debated.
- In a situation where you already have a group of trained players, and in cases when time is
limited and/or the spect-actors express discomfort to enact their stories,
the use of Playback theatre is an option. In this case a large group exercise is
conducted to encourage spect-actors to share stories about their chosen theme, then choose the
story they like the most.
Facilitator Tips:
We begin with the assumption that the people are the experts in their own lives.
It is important to remember that this is a tool for people to liberate themselves and fight oppression,
so it is important that the issues are identified by participants themselves. Themes cannot be imposed
on people. We provide the tools and the participants do the work, empowering themselves and finding
their voices in the process.
The way the group is divided depends on the composition of the group. For example if there are several
languages, it might make sense to divide by language, or if a group of participants want to debate
different issues, it might be worthwhile to divide the group by topic of interest.
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