Street Drama
Agricultural messages carried to the village square as performance, for the audience a leaflet never reaches.
A leaflet asks to be read. A performance does not.
A large part of the audience the university needs to reach cannot or will not read a leaflet, and no amount of printing changes that. Street drama goes to them instead — in the village square, at a fair, on a field day — and carries one message at a time in the language of the place, with the people it concerns standing in front of it.
The plays are short and are built around a single practice or hazard: pesticide safety, seed treatment, a crop calendar, animal disease, the cost of one habit against another. Students of the university perform many of them, often with a local group, and the script is written so that it can be adapted to the district it is played in.
One message at a time
Pesticide safety, seed treatment, animal disease — a play carries one, not five.
In the local language
Maithili and Nepali, adapted to the district the play is performed in.
Performed by students
Often with a local group, at fairs, field days and village programmes.