Folktales to address modern problems

The African folklore tradition is being revived in Swaziland to communicate difficult contemporary problems like AIDS and child abuse.

"These stories are not Swaziland-specific, and we believe they would be welcome and useful in other African nations," UN children's agency UNICEF representative, Alan Brody, told IRIN. Brody wrote the first stories himself as a way to reach rural Swazis with self-help messages about protection against AIDS and child molestation.

"We had an initiative underway on the issue of sexual abuse of children," said Brody. "But communities didn't know how to address it. Sexual abuse of children, which is a horror on its own, is also a key issue that is fuelling the continuing spread of the HI virus. We wanted to put in place a group of protectors at the neighbourhood level. Children would know to turn to them. They would tell children they don't have to accept abuse, and tell them how to recognise dangers, and what to do."

As the first protectors went into rural areas to work with children, the Swazi kids came up with a name for them - Mahlombe Lekukhalela - which means "shoulder to cry on".

Those shoulders have a big task. Approximately one-third of adult Swazis are HIV-positive. Health NGOs say the AIDS epidemic affects children in two ways. Firstly, they are orphaned. Then they may contract the disease themselves through child abuse.

The Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA), a counselling service, reports a 50 percent rise in reported cases of incest in the past two years. "It is not that the incident of incest has suddenly risen, but reporting is more widespread," explained Khosi Mtethfwa, director of the centre.

"We were faced with challenges," said Brody. "How do outsiders - the protectors - come into a community, to families, and start talking about the issue of sexual abuse? It's very sensitive. We realised we couldn't do it in the villages the way it's done in the cities, where the approach is very technical using the language of psychology and sociology. So, we hit upon the idea of using folktales, taking the African traditional approach to put across those ideas."

Brody came to Africa from his native United States 30 years ago to teach literature in Ghana. He was struck by the local folktales, or Ananse stories, that bore a similarity to the Brerr Rabbit fables from home, and were in fact the original inspiration for them. "I always thought folktales would be a powerful tool of communication in present-day Africa," he said.

In Swaziland, a story entitled 'How the Children of Chakijane Put an End to Brother Snake's Abuse' was first rehearsed and performed by professional actors for church groups that were working with UNICEF on a 'Say Yes to Children' campaign. Subsequent performances of the child abuse fable were put on by children themselves. The play's comprehension level is geared toward 12 year-olds and above.

The story is shockingly direct, but because the characters are animals, audiences accept the fable. Brother Snake is a deceitful visitor from the city, who convinces Chakijane, a rock rabbit, that taking his 12 year-old daughter to bed is perfectly acceptable. The tale ends in tragedy, and even the beheading of the snake by the villagers, who are all other animals from the African menagerie, does not negate the sadness of a girl's death and a father's banishment.

"There is a lot of humour in the play, but at the end, the audience is devastated. They feel the way the focus groups say they feel about child abuse, helpless. But it is a starting point for the discussion that follows," said Brody.

Velephi Riba, Brody's deputy, noted: "We have been staging the play for large pre-selected audiences, all adults, and then they break up into focus groups: the unemployed, community elders, Christians, male and female. We found a great desire to take action against the situation shown in the play. People translated the allegory to their own lives."

When the play is performed in communities, a discussion takes place at the end of the performance followed by an election where the neighbourhood chooses who their protector will be.

The protectors are then expected to tell the Chakijane story themselves, reading from one of the several thousand printed versions UNICEF is about to publish. Surrounded by neighbourhood children, the "shoulders to cry on" raise awareness, answer questions, and build bonds of trust for the children to use if they feel threatened by abuse.

African fables were intended to be instructive, using humour and whimsy to drive home truths about life. With rising AIDS and child abuse cases, life may be more dangerous than ever for Swazi children. The folk tale has returned to address these challenges.

[This item is delivered to the "PlusNews" HIV/AIDS Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]