Health on Stage… Open Day in Bangalore
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
On the 30th of September the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS) along with FSL India the hosting organisation held “Health on Stage” Open Day in Bangalore. One and a half month lasting project concluded with the closing session in which participants shared their thoughts about the results and experiences of living and working closely with local communities in Bangalore, Chennai and Mysore. A group of 21 young Eurasian Volunteers with linguistic and cultural diversity facilitated Health on Stage and engaged in intensive dialogue with local community by using “forum theatre” as the medium for communication.
A host of local print and electronic media, 
NGOs and civil society organisations participated in the open day programme to get an update on Health on Stage and appreciated the efforts of the young volunteers. Each group represented the most popular performance that was implemented in the community. The audience could get familiar with how public health dialogue was being implemented by linguistically diversified group and witnessed how forum theatre can be an effective means for communication.
While addressing the inaugural function Rakesh S. Soans, the President of 
FSL India appreciated the young volunteers and reiterated that health is a global issue and global community need to work together to improve the health status of the people. Participating in the panel discussion Dr. Sanjay, the Vice-president of FSL India emphasized the need of forum theatre as an effective tool for information dissemination and public health dialogue. Forum theatre attempts to identify local solutions to the local health problems.
In the sharing session Ms Jaya Iyer (Indian forum theatre trainer) together with the participants Mr. Nagoor Kani from FSL India, Ms Rubini Raghunathan from the local community participant and member of the Chennai group, Mr. Felimon Blanco the volunteer from The Philippines and member of the Bangalore group, Ms Suzanne Prak the volunteer from The Netherlands and member of the Mysore group shared their views on the impact of the programme on the local communities. Most of the participants agreed that the Health on Stage was very successful and forum theatre worked successfully as a way of encouraging and engaging people in discussion about the public health issues. Some of them said that they already have plans for the future cooperation with other partner organizations in their respective countries. Other volunteers too agreed to use the newly gained knowledge and skills in their future course of action.
Addressing the participants, Amb Nguyen Quoc Khanh the Deputy Executive Director Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) expressed his delight and appreciation with the outcomes of the project as well as expressed possible future cooperation for public health dialogue. Responding to the queries raised by media and NGO delegates, Mr. Rakesh said “we will take this agenda forward and reach out to the people of India and engage them on public health dialogue.” Few NGOs and civil society organisations have expressed their willingness to collaborate with FSL India and integrate forum theatre to address water and public health issues.
As follow up of this intervention, ASEF has been documenting the impact and learning of Health on Stage. ASEF plans to bring out training toolkit and evaluation and recommendation of the 10th AEYVE: Health on Stage. It is expected that these publications would serve as resource and reference documents for others to learn and replicate the model.
