Daily Times

LAHORE: The Pehlaaj – Theatre for Social Change Organisation – held an interactive theatre show on the subject of corruption here at the Faiz Ghar in which students of different educational institutions participated.

Theatre founder Naeema Butt held the session aiming at empowering citizens to build the world’s best tools for integrity. “So, you think the corruption is just official thing,” she asked the audience, after several responses that the government departments and politicians were corrupt.

Since most of the audience was students, they thought cheating in examination or giving preferences to friends for any job were soft corruption while the misuse of authority, resources or position, anything that was not used for the relevant purpose fell in the definition of corruption.

The workshop, which had number of interactive activities, kept the participants engaged from one topic to another such as their definition of corruption, and their personal experiences of being oppressed by a ‘corrupt’ society. Transgender community representative Tehzeeb, physically challenged Moiz Shaukat and young entrepreneurs were also present.

The session was followed by a special representative from the Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO) Kausar Abbas, who explained about the Right to Information and shared his expertise. The Accountability Incubator is the Lab’s flagship programme for young civil society leaders to build sustainable, effective tools for accountability, participation and social impact.

Naeema Butt, a US-trained theatre of oppressed facilitator, said that they would be now working for two years on accountability and transparency by using applied theatre techniques for the first time in Pakistan. She said that the workshop was to form integrity theatre clubs in Lahore and other parts of Pakistan. The workshop ended with forum theatre plays.

In it, actors presented a short play or scene called the anti-model – a scene related to real life corruption incidents in daily routine in which the protagonist did not achieve their goal. A request was then made to the audience to change the outcome so that the protagonist wins. An audience member simply says “stop!” when they wish to change the action, then joins the actors on stage to assume the role of the protagonist and hence they become spect-actors from spectators.

The play then continued with the audience member who attempted to change the outcome by making new choices. “This is one of the strongest ways of empowering the audience and finding the solution to end the corruption,” Naeema said. The participants were also briefed on the Right to Information Law and how to file report against corrupt people.

“We want to instill the element of integrity in Pakistani youth by giving them awareness about their rights and ways to stand against corruption at both personal and professional level,” she said. “Youth awareness is the most important thing to do and forum theatre plays a great role in the world to empower the spectators by making them spect-actors. We are forming integrity theatre clubs all around Pakistan to work against corruption for the awareness of the citizens,” she said.