Making Waves: Teatro Kerigma
Stories of Participatory Communication
for Social Change
TITLE: Fundación Teatral Kerigma
COUNTRY: Colombia
MAIN FOCUS: Knowledge, cultural development, participation
PLACE: Bosa
BENEFICIARIES: Population of Bosa, Usaquén, Ciudad Bolívar, Soacha, Kennedy
PARTNERS: Colnodo, Centro de Investigació y Educació Popular, Colombia (CINEP), Corporación Raíces, Universidad Central, Programa por La Paz, otros
FUNDING: Netherlands Organisation for International Development Cooperation (NOVIB), DIAKONIA, Ministerio de Cultura, Instituto Distrital de Turismo
MEDIA: Theatre
Far in the border between Bogotá and the Soacha Municipality where the city ends, survives a neighbourhood that looks impersonal at first sight: La Despensa. Its houses built by segments seem to have no regard for aesthetics. Brick over brick their facades resemble, giving the general impression of pitiable and monotonous architecture.
The shops offering homemade curative potions, the road mechanics repairing old trucks from the time of World War II, and the night stands selling hot dogs are part of the local landscape. However these streets have witnessed the growth of strong bonds of solidarity, friendship and affection.
It is in this neighbourhood where the experience of Fundación Kerigma started 22 years ago and has developed on the basis of a network of human relations that is more important than ideologies and personal or economic constraints.
Kerigma started as a youth group that held its meetings at the parish, in homes or even in the streets. Soon after, they got a small communal room that was too often flooded with water. Finally one day they were able to rent a place, which they used for rehearsals, exhibits, as well as drama, music and dance workshops.
In 1988 Kerigma received a house as a donation. With the support of the Librovía programme the house was revamped and new rooms were added in 1991. Today, the three-story building is full of kids, full of dreams and smiles, full of rehearsals, public and visitors. It is now the headquarters of the Casa de la Cultura (the House of Culture) with a small theatre, a library, various workshops, and room enough to keep the video and photographic equipment, the theatre props, and to house a computer unit that provides training and community access to the Internet.
Certainly, we haven't had time to get nostalgic, because things are very much alive around here. What we do have, and lots of, is time to fall in love.
Excerpts from an article by Jairo Chaparro Valderrama, president, Corporación Raíces.
Kerigma is a cultural NGO that started in 1978 as a group of young people eager topromote theatre in the locality of Bosa, in Bogotá. Since the first Bertold Brecht's The Exceptions and the Rule staged by Teatro Kerigma in 1979, other plays have been added to Kerigma's repertoire. The theatre troupe has produced its own scripts or has adapted plays to the local context, increasingly relating the contents to community needs, social analysis and citizen participation.
In terms of the audience and the methodology of work, Kerigma makes the distinction between plays performed in theatres and those performed in open spaces, in the streets. Around twenty plays mostly by well-known authors as Brecht and Tennessee Williams have been staged in theatres during the first years. However Kerigma has increasingly taken advantage of Latin American authors and gradually developed its own collective creations directed by Enrique Espitia León and Camilo León Mora. Although Kerigma now has its own theatre for 100 people, with a 64 square metre stage, in recent years the troupe has increasingly developed performances in openspaces, thus showing a major interest in community work.
In spite of theatre being the most dynamic factor within the ensemble of activities of Kerigma, the organisation has evolved in a number of other areas. Part of Kerigma's activities to promote community awareness and participation relate to training. Every year new training activities are conducted, mostly workshops on art, skills and training on alternative media skills for young journalists.
Every year Kerigma organises the Muestra de Arte Popular Popular Arts Festival) which has already reached its 20th anniversary in 2000. The participation at this event has increased steadily. When the first festival took place in 1981 only four groups performed; however, more than 3 groups participated every year since 1995.
Other than the performances and events, Kerigma has a series of publications and audio-visual productions. Even before Kerigma formalised itself as an independent foundation for cultural development in Bosa, the group produced several booklets, such as Cartilla Raíz(1979)or the Boletín de Casa de la Cultura (1987). But since 1992 Kerigma has published its own news bulletin Notas de Encuentro, which is now a regular page on its web site. The video tools concentrate on documenting Kerigma's activities, mainly those related to community development in Bosa and citizen participation. These videos were produced in partnership with other NGOs and development agencies.
In 1997 Teatro Kerigma was selected along with Fundación Pepaso and Fundación AVP, to house one of the Neighbourhood Information Units (Unidades Informativas Barriales UIBs), a project promoted by Colnodo with support IDRC (Canada). Colnodo established the UIBs for reassessing local knowledge and facilitating access to it.
"Each human being is living knowledge, moving information, generator of communication bits, which makes him or her, a potential actor of development".
The programme plans to collect people's knowledge and organise it so it will be useful for citizen participation in development. Computers are used to gather and stock the information, while Internet and e-mail services are offered to the community.
The collaboration with Colnodo, an organisation that promotes the use of Internet for community development, has expanded the horizons of Kerigma. The organisation has gained visibility while developing a new line of community work. The Teatro Kerigma Website is now a window for the world to peek into the activities of this theatre group and cultural organisation.
Bosa is one of the 20 localities of Santa Fe de Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. Though formerly inhabited by Chibcha Indians, little remains of its ancient cultural identity. The small rural huts disappeared two centuries ago, but the area continued to be an important agricultural setting, producing wheat, potatoes and barley. By 1950 the population was still under 20,000 however unemployment and violence in rural areas pushed thousands of people to the capital and soon Bosa became one more urban locality of Bogotá.
Bosa is divided into 283 barrios, with a total of 250 thousand people. Migration sharpened social problems and poverty in Bosa as well as in other peripheral localities of Bogotá; however, Bosa benefited at the same time from institutions that started cultural and educational programmes in the locality.
The "Grupo Juvenil Kerigma" ("Kerigma Juvenile Group") has come a long way since it started in the 1970s promoting the development of community theatre. A few years later Kerigma opened a Casa de la Cultura and vigorously expanded to other activities. The motto of the festival is significant: "Cultura para la Paz y la Convivencia" (Culture for Peace and Reconciliation).
Kerigma has had an impact in community development in Bosa, by strengthening cultural identity, encouraging citizen participation, and promoting local governance. Its activities of theatre, music, dance, community arts festivals, publications, audio-visual production, training workshops, etc., have been successful in reaching a wide audience of children, youths and adults. The organisation has succeeded in bringing together concepts of culture and society, culture and development, and culture and participation.
One of the aspects of social change that Kerigma has promoted is networking with other institutions and cultural organisations. The initiative has led to the constitution of a network of theatre groups from other localities of Colombia, such as Teatro Esquina Latina(Cali), Corporación Nefesh (Medellín), Teatro El Agora (Envigado), Grupo Teatro Tecoc (Bello), Grupo Jocrar (Medellín), and various other drama troupes from Bogotá.
The work of Kerigma has transcended the community to theinternational level. The organisation has participated in international theatre festivals, with plays such as Carreras por el Poder and Pies Hinchados (Swollen Feet), an adaptation from the classic King Oedipus.
One of the most important achievements, by the UIBs project supported by Colnodo, was to take computers and Internet access to low-income and working class neighbourhoods, thus breaking down the typical centralism that characterises access to new technologies in the capital city of Colombia. The participatory communication experience of the UIBs, was presented at the Global Knowledge II Conference in Kuala Lumpur, in March 2000.
Cultural organisations visit Kerigma's UIB regularly to use the computers, though mainly for word processing and printing. As several of these organisations do not have their own headquarters, they find the UIB a very useful place and friendly environment for preparing proposals and researching.
The expansion of Kerigma's cultural coverage over Bosa led the organisation to seriously focus on the study of the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the locality. The study was developed in collaboration with Universidad Central and the participation of various local institutions. Colnodo contributed by publishing the research results on the Internet.
The research methodology provided Kerigma with very complete information on the social interactions within the Bosa locality, thus strengthening the style of work once designed on the basis of empirical knowledge. The study comprises a cultural map of Bosa, as well as specific data on social, economic, institutional and geographical aspects.
The task of incorporating the tools of new information and communication technologies has been challenging for Kerigma. The group has explored innovative ways of conducting training activities for adults and children, using participatory approaches to build and organise knowledge collectively.
The most recent constraints deal with the establishment and sustainability of the UIB. In spite of Kerigma's longstanding reputation as a well-established cultural institution, the introduction of new technologies has been met with the indifference of most of the intended beneficiaries.
"To date, the UIBs have no routine visitors either from within the organisation or from outside. It is only the unit coordinators who make regular use of e-mail and the Internet", according to Luis Fernando Baron from CINEP.
The lack of articulation between the UIB and the general activities of Kerigma at the community level partly explains the cultural resistance and the prejudices of local people against the use of computers and the Internet. Students and organisations aiming to improve the look of their documents and presentations mostly use the services. Word-processing and printing are in high demand, while e-mail and the Internet are seldom utilised, which seems to point to the fact that the initial purpose of making knowledge accessible to the community was defeated. Nonetheless, the process is still young and changes may occur in the next two or three years if adequate strategies to promote the UIB are implemented.
The numerous communication breakdowns caused by the poor quality of telephone lines and the frequent power blackouts represent additional obstacles.
Information for this chapter was provided by Marcya Hernández and Sylvia Cadena through e-mail exchanges.
Click here for Kerigma's website.
De la Educación y la Participación Ciudadana en Colombia by Marcya Hernández, Fundación Kerigma. Bogotá, 1999.
"Experiments in community access to new communication and information technologies in Bogota" by Luis Fernando Baron, CINEP. Telecentre Evaluation: A Global Perspective. International Development Research Centre (IDRC), 1999.
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