Montana, September 12, 2019
The Shakespeare and Servantes tour around the Roma neighborhoods of Bulgaria went to the Kosharnik district of Montana. Talented and enthusiastic local children, selected by the Roma actress Natalia Tzekova presented fragments of the drama “Romeo and Juliet” from a newer angle and with adequate health messages. The aim of the social theatre is with the means of art to inform the public in a comprehensible manner about the harm of early marriages and early school drop outs, the benefits of contraception, the importance of prevention of sexually transmitted infections. The messages target young people as well as their parents, some of which joined the scenes to demonstrate their support for what their children are saying. With his monologue about the Roma Don Quixote Valeri Lekov, also part of the production team, explained some of the community specificities. Between the sketches there were “real life” scenes – a woman from the community visits a doctor who explains the benefits of contraception and debunks some “fake news” about contraceptive methods – all this with a lot of humour and highly appreciated by the audience.
Before the play Marieka Vanderviele – the IPPF Brussels office representative, coordinating project activities, got to acquainted with the district – from its more “presentable” part to the most marginalized one, had conversations with some of the members of the self-help groups formed under the project – women and men, discussed with the health mediators Sonya Rumenova and Valya Aleksandrova all aspects of their work and activities under different projects, and also visited the Community Support Centre, built by Montana Municipality.
The event was part of “My body, my rights” project, funded by the MSD for Mothers social responsibility program, which is implemented in Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania with BFPA working on its Bulgarian component in Sofia, Montana and Yambol. Again we have to emphasize on the talented engagement in field activities of the actress Natalia Tzekova as producer and director and Valeri Lekov for text adaptation. They brought out the enthusiasm in the local children to participate in the show and introduced them to the magic of the theatre and art. And some of them may keep this enthusiasm in the future and we wish them to do that.
