A two-day “Youth Engagement Workshop” on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) of youth ended here on Sunday. The interactive workshop aiming to develop an edutainment serial focusing on SRHR, involved youth activists and local theatre participants from nine districts from across Pakistan, including Peshawar, Abbottabad, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Lahore, Lodhran, Jamshoro, Karachi, Quetta and Pishin.
The workshop was organised by Life Line under its mass awareness campaign titled “Hayat” which had recently been launched in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and Peshawar.
Day two of the workshop titled “Edutainment Drama on SRHR”, involved the participation of renowned names from the media industry, including Pakistan’s leading playwright and director Shahid Mehmood Nadeem, executive producer of Bol-the Movie and a seasoned behavior change communication expert Fayyaz Khan, and Kashif Nisar, a talented TV-drama director and playwright.
The day’s session kicked off with the Communications Research Strategies Pvt. Ltd. (CRS) Chief Operating Officer Khawar Azhar requesting a one-minute silence to mourn the death of Awami National Party leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour, who was martyred on December 22 when a suicide bomber exploded himself at an ANP rally in Peshawar. On the occasion, Shahid spoke about drama conceptualization and scripting techniques.
Sharing tips from his extensive experience in the media field, Shahid emphasized on the importance of issue-based entertainment products which would be both relevant and engaging, while not diverting focus from the core message being portrayed to the audience. Furthermore, Shahid shared clips from his popular issue based plays, including Janjaal Pura and Jam Jam Jeevay Jammanpura, and highlighted how entertainment products could cover serious social issues like population explosion.
Fayyaz Khan focused his session on “Enter-Educate” which revolved around the concept of how to effectively use entertainment for educational purposes. According to Fayyaz, storytelling, songs and pictures were among the most effective learning tools.
They should be used smartly to devise enter-education products that could grab viewer attention and leave long lasting messages in the minds of viewers, he said.
Moreover, Fayyaz showed clips from the award winning film Bol, which, like Janjaal Pura, brought major social issues like maternal mortality and male child preference to the mainstream.
Meanwhile, Kashif Nisar spoke at length about issue based drama production and direction. He highlighted the various steps involved in producing a drama, beginning from pre-production activities, and leading all the way to the final product.
Furthermore, Nisar also showed clips from his award winning directorial achievement Khuda Zameen Se Gaya Nahi, and spoke about the various challenges they had to overcome to make an entertainment product on the issue of terrorism. Later, participants were asked to brainstorm and give ideas about a concept for a 16-episode drama on SRHR issues on the final session of the day.
Five concepts shortlisted from a collection of more than 25 received from 105 educational institutes from nine targeted districts were tabled and one was selected in the end.
Lifeline CEO Omer Aftab, CRS CEO Aniq Zafar and Khawar Azhar ended the workshop after distributing certificates among the participants.
