"I act to Tell"- A bright future shaping drama club

“I act to Tell” is a young generation drama club based in Kagugu, which through sketches and stage plays they play is working to change the present in order to shape the better future.

“We, I Act to tell drama club, are a group of young people with different backgrounds but most of us are affected by HIV/AIDS. We came together in order to tell our stories in the way to help our parents, caretakers, and young people like us to view the life in the positive way, in order to change what we see in the present to build the brighter future in which everybody will live happily. So, we don’t act to tell only, we act to change.” Said Pacifique, one of I Act to tell drama club member, on Saturday February 21^st at their gathering, after performing a sketch portraying a child living with and orphaned by HIV/AIDS who is stigmatized by his so called father/caretaker

I Act To Tell, young people, boys and girls act to shape the bright future

I Act to tell drama club works under Amahoro organization, which is a local community based NGO working to improve welfare of children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

“Amahoro Organization is a local Non-Governmental, not-for-profit organization that works with vulnerable children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.  Working with I Act to tell drama club, was because we wanted to spread the message on broad population in order to make some change through sketches and stage plays.” Said Christella Anezezase, consultant at Amahoro Organization in interview with Inyarwanda.com’s reporter

Amahoro Organization works in partnership with CHABHA, an acronym of CHildren Affected By HIV/AIDS a New York based charitable organization which works with community based local organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa – Rwanda included, for improving social welfare of children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

David Loewenguth, the executive director of CHABHA in Rwanda explained what CHABHA does, and how it helps vulnerable families by working with local community based organizations, Amahoro, among others.

“In 2000s when we came in Rwanda, there were children most of them were orphans and did not have hope for future. Most of them were orphaned by HIV/AIDS and they were dropped out of schools. So we started to raise funds, to help them back to school and we started to work with community based organizations. We asked ourselves: how can we help these children? And we came up with the idea – EDUCATION first. And that’s when we started working with community based organizations in order to help identify those children who need help, and we took them back to schools and vocational trainings.” Said David

A Bumbogo woman who risen from nowhere, by the help of CHABHA through AMAHORO Organization

“We also asked ourselves how can we help to improve the welfare of their households, and we created the income generating program, where we donated livestock  mostly goats to vulnerable families, which helped them to improve their welfare until now. Many of them were affected by HIV, So, we made this to improve their food security and welfare, by now we have families in Bumbogo that we helped improve their lives, now they are wealthy while back then they were hopeless.” Added Mr. David

Talking about the reason CHABHA supports I Act to Tell drama club, David: “Back in 2011, an organization from the US came in Rwanda, and partnered with CHABHA Rwanda, and approached each association in which can provide school program. This organization is called Bright Future International, So, I approached some locally working organizations which can work with us by providing some English trainings program, and Amahoro organization wanted to have an acting school program. So with the idea that drama is a good tool to do so, we approached some young people in Kagugu that perform sketches. ”

I Act to Tell drama club performed sketches and stage plays in various occasions for audience of various ages, where through their performances mostly HIV/AIDS and GBV themed contributed in changing mindsets of their audiences and they admit that this art is helping them to shape the bright future.

Mutiganda Janvier