Puppets in Kenyan Classrooms

Puppets in the Classroom - By Tony Mboyo, UNIMA Kenya

In 1993, FPPS, through its affiliate Programme CHAPS, developed an expanding and deepening puppetry programme in Kenya. Puppetry art has been used as means of communication for awareness creation, community mobilization and sensitization in Kenya and the African region. The metamorphosis of this art form has sprouted into dissimilar dimensions of using puppetry. To mention but a few examples, puppets have, and continue to be used, to fight corruption, to encourage gender equity, to promote Road safety, to confront HIV/AIDS, to kick polio, to ridicule, to stimulate and even just to entertain for arts sake.

Of particular interest is the more recent introduction of puppetry in the classroom, a school based initiative that promotes its use as a teaching tool.

Picture this,

“The smartly dressed social studies teacher is carefully arranging objects on the class’ working table; she places a window-shaped cardboard box, a flower vase with brightly coloured flowers, a miniature ladder, an eggshell, a flashlight and a portable music player. The pupils are in an unusual silence, the suspense is evident. She switches on the player and a soft mellow tune fills the air while, almost simultaneously, a small puppet character appears on the cardboard window singing along. It is only then that everybody realises that its time for Puppets in the Classroom! The social studies teacher has planned to use puppets to discuss ethics.”


As a preliminary point, 48 teachers from both government and private school in and around Nairobi were invited to participate in a 5-day intensive training on the use of Puppetry in a school setup. The teachers, mostly from Kindergarten and primary level who largely had no previous experience in puppetry went through the processes of design and construction, use of local material and discards, manipulation, story creation, lesson planning and finally performing with puppets.

After the workshop, the teachers continue to utilise the art form in various aspect of their teaching processes. One notable example is the use of puppetry to improve the students masterly of language and the arts. In practice, the teachers use puppets interactively with the pupils to intensify the children’s learning abilities through stories.

Schools that have been highly successful in the application of this tool include Treeside School for the Mentally Handicapped, Makini Schools, AMICUS, Lily of the Valley and Marion Preparatory School all in Nairobi, Kenya. Teachers in these schools have noted a high interest in subject that they teach using this methodology and marked enhancement in concentration during lessons

FPPS now intends to extend the program to even more schools in, and around Nairobi, with particular emphasis on the use of puppetry to promote the teaching of ethics, civics social behaviour and morals to pupils. Other needs to be met by through the project are; stimulating and improving learning for children with difficulties such as low interest and concentration, mentally challenged, hearing disabilities and other deficiencies. The project will also aim at enhancing children’s imagination, creativity and use of cultural legends and stories.

New schools, which will be integrated into the programme, have already been identified and contacted. Part of the programmes outputs will be a school’s puppetry curriculum that will be developed in collaboration with the partners from the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), the Ministry of education and the Kenya Institute of Special education (KISE)

The projects long-term goal is to establish puppetry as an innovative, a creative and effective medium to be introduced into the curriculum of Kenyan Schools; as a tool for Kenyan teachers. It is expected that a classroom learning session will eventually be a more real, concrete and interesting experience for pupils and students.

For more info on this project contact

Anthony Mboyo
Program officer FPPS (CHAPS)
Treasurer UNIMA Kenya
P.O.Box 46042, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Tel (254 20) 2715002/2710705
Fax (254 20) 2715115
Email mkasmall@yahoo.com
Unima_kenya@myway.com

Puppets For The Blind

PUPPETS FOR THE BLIND IN ERITREA - By Anthony Mboyo

The three Puppeteers traveling to Asmara by flight via Djibouti had one thing in common; they were wondering how to approach the Eritrean Blind community with the concept of Puppetry. The biggest challenge to us actually was how puppetry, being a visual metaphor, would appeal to a visually impairedgroup of participants. On invitation by the Eritrean National Association for The Blind (ERNAB) based in Asmara Eritrea, we were supposed tointroduce the concept of Puppetry in Education to the blind people for them to address issues affecting them.

Background
Eritrea is a country that is trying to recuperate from the devastation caused by an almost 30-year-old war with neighboring Ethiopia, a confrontation that has left many people physically disabled and emotionally distressed withmany still suffering from communicable diseases as a direct result of poverty caused by the war. Blindness is a common disability among the people of Eritrea. A major challenge to the blind people is that most communities lack both theknowledge and attitude to integrate the blind, or visually impaired, people into the social order. A further contributing factor is that there are few existing facilities to provide for the needs of the blind community. This state of affairs gave rise to an urgent need to lay down strategies for advocacy for policy formulation, awareness creation and discussion on matters pertaining to rights of the blind people and other disabled in the country. Puppetry,having been successful as a tool for community mobilization and awareness creation in Kenya, was identified as a potential tool to employ in this intervention. In November 2005, the Community Health Awareness Puppeteers (CHAPS)was invited to travel to Eritrea and conduct a 14 day workshop for ERNAB

The workshop
On arrival at Asmara, contrary to our slender misjudgments, Asmara is one of the modernized cities in Africa with an incredible infrastructure.19 participants had been invited to the workshop, which would later prove to be one of the most challenging workshops I have ever facilitated. We commenced with a capacity assessment of the participants and to our delight, some participants had some little knowledge on theatre. We embarked on an introduction of theatre concept and theories and proceeded to introduce anew concept of Participatory Educational Theatre using puppetry as the discourse of performance.It was no wonder that the introduction to puppetry was well received since this was going to be a new approach topopular education. One important thing to note was hat the visually impaired people tend to be very intelligent and always excel in a field that they undertake to pursue. Without even seeing the objects, they learnt to manipulate puppets and air out issues in scripts with a remarkable commitment. We had some participants who were not blind and played a major role in assisting their blind colleagues in constructionof puppets and general movement within the workshop.At the end of the workshop, two performances were performed touching on the issue of cultural perception towards the blind people and access to education. The discussions that ensued during the final performance were proof that the puppets had opened a new door of dialogue and willingness to embrace the marginalized within the society According top Kflom Weldergebriel, one of the participants who lost his sight in the war, "The puppets have inspired a new vision to the blind people and we hope for a brighter future for the blind people of Eritrea" On departing from Asmara, we left behind an elated people and enthusiastic community theatre practitioners who we indeed know will restore hope in the hearts of many Eritrean families. To crown it all, ERITV the only national television channel aired aspecial program on the overall project.The whole project was just but a beginning to continued partnership between ERNAB and CHAPS and the two countries wouldcontinue to enjoy closer ties with each other.We thank the Netherlands embassy in Eritrea for supporting this worthy course.

As the three puppeteers are flying back to Nairobi via Khartoum smiling, they all have one thought, "It was a challenge worth facing"

For more information on the project contact:

Anthony Mboyo
Program officer CHAPS
Treasurer UNIMA Kenya Chapter
P. O. Box 46042 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: (254) (20) 2715002, 210705
Fax 254 20 2715115
Email mkasmall@yahoo.com
unima_kenya@myway.com