Browsing by Author "Mwita, Mahiri"

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    Breaking cultural barriers of HIV/AIDS intransigence through theatre: an examination of theatre-against-AIDS interventions in Kenya
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2010) Mwita, Mahiri
    In the beginning of the 21st century, HIV-AIDS prevention programs declared that ‘almost everyone in Kenya knows about AIDS and how deadly it is’. However, emerging statistics continued to report rising rates of infection, presenting a new challenge that this universal awareness was not translating into decline in the spread of the disease. This intransigence has been blamed on cultural stigma that inhibits people’s openness to be associated with AIDS and its services. In the search for innovative preventions to target this stigma, theatre-against-AIDS programs have been mainstreamed into many intervention programs in Kenya. However, little academic research is available on the quality and efficacy of these programs. This research studied the process of performing the theatre-against-AIDS interventions, the stigma they target, and the immediate and long-term efficacy of the programs. The study employed an ethnographic methodology comprising of memoing, participant observation, interviews, focus-group discussions, and theme-coding as its main methods of data collection and analysis. This study established that the theatre-against-AIDS programs are successful in mobilizing people into community-based forums in which they discuss various themes on the AIDS problems. Specific achievements include enabling forums that suggest local solutions to the AIDS issues and participants of these outreaches taking the action of going to VCT centres for HIV testing. Its main challenges include lack of socio-political and economic support structures to sustain the momentum created through the outreaches.