WHAT WE DO Voices provides a method for advocacy, using documentary theatre and strategic communication as key components. Our projects address human rights and women’s rights issues and are always contextualized and implemented by our local partners. So what are we? Ethical lobbyists? Public diplomacy consultants? Innovators? We are, in fact, a combination of all three. Voices combines documentary theatre and ethical lobbying in a method that catalyses change built on emotion. At Voices we believe that the best way to achieve change is to do it together. Therefore, we identify the key stakeholders in the issue and context that our clients want to address and create a platform where they can work together. In our case, a documentary play.
HOW WE DO IT We know that there are lots of people, organizations, companies and governments that try to do good. We believe that there is a lot to gain by coordinating efforts between stakeholders that are all working to achieve the same thing. Of course, this might seem obvious. But how to do it without compromising the individual agendas of the stakeholders involved?
Reading of the play Seven, part of our project Seven on tour in the Serbian Parliament, 2013
READINGS We work with documentary theatre and strategic communication as tools for social change. We believe that the best way of achieving change is to stimulate an engagement based on emotion. Through seminars, discussions and articles, you can understand an issue or violation of human rights on an intellectual level. But when you listen to real stories and experiences delivered on stage it “hits your head, heart and stomach� as a Swedish ambassador once put it. You understand the situation on an intellectual level but you also feel what the person on stage is saying and you can translate those feelings into self-experienced situations.
READERS Our way of staging a documentary play is different from the traditional way. Instead of actors on stage, we identify key persons in the issues that we want to address. If we want to highlight the importance of gender equality in the workplace internally at Nato’s strategic headquarters, SHAPE, who better to send the message than the highest ranked officers? And if we want to raise public awareness about the importance of legislation against violence against women in Ukraine, why not involve MPs, an activist, a rock star, a poet and a writer? Or if you want the reading to inspire Swedish youth to show civil courage, of course you have the students on stage! Through this method, we have over nearly a thousand influential people as readers including students, ex prime ministers, activists, models, military, politicians, athletes etcetera to promote human rights and women’s rights in 31 countries.
PREVIOUS READERS - A SELECTION Haji Mohammad Abdu Member of National Parliament, Afghanistan (Mazar-e-Sharif,2013) Nawal el Moutawakel Olympic Champion, Vice President International Olympic Committee, Morocco (Rabat, 2013) Mikael Damberg Minister for Enterprise, (Swedish Parliament, 2010 and Almedalen, 2011) Birgitta Ohlsson Vladimir Pozner
MP, Former Minister for EU-affairs, Sweden (Stockholm, Uppsala, Haag, Gothenburg 2009, 2010, 2011) Journalist, broadcaster anchor for Russia TV Channel 1, commentator on NBC (St Petersburg, 2011)
Jadranka Kosor Former Prime Minister, Croatia (Zagreb, 2013) Esma Redzepova World renown Roma singer, Macedonia (Skopje 2013) Ramadan Ramadani
Imam and journalist, Macedonia (Skopje, 2013)
Anja Pärson
Swedish alpine skier. Olympic medalist (Umeå, 2016)
Foto Strakosha
Legendary football player, Albania (Tirana, 2013)
Sissela Kyle John Podesta Theodor Kallifatides
Actress, director, Sweden (Stockholm, 2010, 2011)
Amelia Adamo
Legendary publisher, Sweden’s Tina Brown (Stockholm, 2010)
Sir Richard Shirref
Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) (Mons, Belgium, 2014)
Chairman of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, USA (Washington DC, 2015) Author, Sweden (Stockholm, 2011)
COMMUNICATION Readers are chosen both because of their expertise in the area, but also because of the target groups they help us reach. They become spokespersons for the issues our clients seek to address. This is one of the reasons our projects receive massive media attention in every context it is implemented.
CUSTOMERS Voices projects are for organizations and companies that want to do good and bring attention to a specific issue in a specific context. To date we have worked with governmental institutions such as the Swedish Institute and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support the Swedish mission of ensuring women’s rights globally. We have worked with Nato’s strategic headquarter (SHAPE) to underline the importance of gender equality within the organization as well as externally. We have also conducted the projects for and with universities, local non-governmental institutions (NGO’s), Swedish National Public Radio (Sveriges Radio), Living History Forum (Forum för levande historia), the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten), Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), the Nobel Museum, Afrikagrupperna, Swedish municipalities and UN Women. In some cases the customer is also the implementing partner on the ground. In other cases the project is mainly funded by an organization or institution and implemented through local collaborations.
COLLABORATORS We can provide you with the method for change, but the experts are the people working on a daily basis with the issue that you want to address. We always team up with leading non-governmental organizations in the country or city that we work, to form strong local partnerships. We facilitate capacity building workshops aimed at forming a strategy for how to efficiently target the issue addressed and provide tools for using our method. We want the local partner to feel ownership of the project, which is why they have responsibility for the implementation, budget, communication and casting of ensemble – and making sure they meet the aims of the project. We strive to integrate the project in the every day business of our local partner and to ensure that it supports its overall purpose. Voices projects also give the local partner the opportunity to create a synergy with other activities, which are named “side activities� in our project planning. The side activities support the over-all purpose of the project. Panel discussions, photo exhibitions, and social media campaigns are examples of side activities conducted by our local partners. Hence, the project benefits our customers in terms of bringing attention to a specific issue, and it also builds capacity for the implementing partner as well as a providing a unique networking opportunity.
PROJECTS Voices currently work with five projects. The theme our customers want to adress decides what play/project is the most suitable.
ROMA VOICES Roma Voices is a documentary drama by Hedda Krausz Sjรถgren commissioned by the Swedish government coordinator for Roma Inclusion. It premiered on June 1, 2016 at the national conference on the first four years of working with the national strategy for inclusion of Roma. It aims at creating engagement among primarily officials on government and municipal level and dialogue between Roma and non-Roma. Roma people in Sweden is a diverse group, which has suffered severely under discrimination, abuse and exclusion. In 2012 the Swedish government adopted a 20-year strategy for inclusion of Roma into society and began the work on a White Paper (Vitbok) of the abuses against Roma committed by the state during the 20th century. Roma is recognized among the 5 national Swedish minority groups alongside for example the Jewish and Sami people. Roma Voices documents the stories of five individuals and how the strategy has affected their lives. The stories reflect the dreams and aspirations of any individual, and yet, subtle and not so subtle treatment by friends, colleagues and government agencies remind the protagonists that they belong to a stigmatized group.
A WORLD TO LIVE IN A World To Live In is a documentary drama portraying four long time Swedish Amnesty International activists. Four Swedes passionately engaged in the fight for human rights: a teacher, a secretary, a writer and a nurse – Why have they chosen to devote their comfortable, safe lives in Sweden to the fight for the rights of political prisoners, death row inmates and refugees in far away countries? How has the fight changed their lives? The play was commissioned by National Touring theatre (Riksteatern) in 2011, and the production was given to the Swedish Amnesty International section as a birthday present on the 50’th anniversary of the organisation. A World To Live In was written by Hedda Krausz Sjögren och Jonas Jarl and premiered in 10 venues on the same day, including at Södra Teatern in Stockholm where the prolific Greek-Swedish writer Theodor Kallifatides read one of the roles. The artists Gnucci, Anne-Lena Brundin and Emil Jensen and former archbishop KG Hammar are among the persons who have lent their voices to the people portrayed in the play.
THE EMPTY CHAIR The Empty Chair is a documentary play and a project about the ten human rights activists who received the Per Anger Prize, an international prize established by the Swedish government to promote initiatives supporting human rights and democracy. The laureates are activists from all over the world who work with their lives at stake. The play was written in 2014 by Hedda Krausz SjÜgren and Jonas Jarl on behalf of the Forum for Living History. The Empty Chair-project aims to strengthen youth participation and confidence in democratic values. The project raises questions about the difficulties today’s human rights activists meet, what motivates them and how more people can get involved in work for the equal rights. In 2015 The Empty Chair was carried out as a pilot project in 12 primary and secondary schools in Sweden to raise the issues of democracy, activism and civic courage. The project was a collaboration between Hedda Produktion, Living History Forum and the Africa Groups and implemented with the support of the Swedish Inheritance
THE UNWOMANLY FACE OF WAR The Unwomanly Face of War is a play based on Nobel laureate Svetlana Aleksijevitjs renowned documentary novel based on hundreds of interviews with women who were previously overlooked when war history was written: snipers, medical personnel, pilots and signalers. Together, they were over 800 000 women. The play was written by Hedda Krausz Sjรถgren and Jonas Jarl in 2013 and peremiered at the Human Rights Days in Stockholm the same year. In 2015 the play was staged at the Swedish Royal Theatre. The performances were followed by conversations with female refugees in Sweden who has had experience of war. The purpose of the conversations was to highlight the continued stigma around these issues in the Swedish context.
SEVEN ON TOUR The aims of Seven on Tour is to bring women’s rights issues higher on the political and media agenda, raise awareness and engagement, and to stimulate the debate on women’s role in society. The Swedish Institute, The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Amnesty International, United Nations Development Program, womens shelters etc. have all cooperated with Seven on Tour to promote democracy and human rights. As a result, Seven on Tour has helped improve bilateral cooperation, as well as strengthened cooperation between stakeholders from grass root to governmental level and empowered individual activists in their local communities. The readings are often linked to activities with a focus on human rights such as panel discussions, seminars and lectures for students.
Seven the play is based on the real life stories of seven women’s rights activists from Nigeria, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Russia, Pakistan, Northern Ireland and Cambodia. The play Seven was written in 2007 by playwrights Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, Anna Deavere Smith and Susan Yankowitz, in collaboration with Vital Voices Global Partnership. The performance and touring concept for Seven On Tour is developed by Swedish producer Hedda Krausz SjÜgren, initially in cooperation with the National Touring Theatre (Riksteatern) and the Swedish Institute.
CASE STUDY
SEVEN ON TOUR IN UKRAINE Seven on Tour was implemented in Ukraine in 2105 as a cooperation between Voices, Ukrainian Women’s Fund and the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine and was funded by the Swedish Institute. The over-all purpose of the project was to raise awareness of the women’s rights situation in Ukraine. Our local partner, Ukrainian Women’s Fund, was founded in 2000 and has since worked to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms of citizens by strengthening civil society organizations, attract more resources to support civil society by developing a culture of philanthropy in Ukraine, facilitate the consolidation of the women’s movement as an integral part of civil society in Ukraine, as well as in Moldova and Belarus, enhance public participation in decision making on different levels and to increase public attention to issues of diversity and gender.
PURPOSE
• Achieve strong media support in covering the issue of gender-based violence using thoroughly developed communication strategy. • Draw public attention to gender-based violence and initiate an open discussion about this negative phenomenon. • Raise youth understanding of gender-based violence and its negative impact on different spheres of our lives. • Address key emerging issues in prevention of gender-based violence and practical assistance to victims of violence. In addition, the project was also to contribute to the following objectives: • Increase gender sensitivity and gender knowledge of the government officials involved into gender mainstreaming policies. • Strengthen cooperation and partnerships between various stakeholders – government authorities, NGOs, academia, media, international organizations on the issues of gender-based violence, etc. • Draw public attention to the issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
RESULTS
Within the scope of the project, five readings of the play Seven were conducted in: • Kiev, National Music Academy, 26 March for an audience of 700 people. • Zhytomyr, 7 October for an audience of 800 people. • Lviv, 7 December for an audience of 600 people. • Kiev, the Parliament, 25 November, for an audience of 150 people (parliamentarians). • Vinnytsia, 29 December, for an audience of 700 people. The readings were followed by discussions about the situation for women in Ukraine, especially focusing on violence against women and the importance of a ratification of the Istanbul Convention. They were also coupled with a social media campaign with the readers taking a stand against violence against women and for women’s empowerment. • The readings received massive media attention and were featured in most of the national as well as local daily media, even in magazines that normally do not address the women’s rights issues, such as Ukrainian Vogue. • The project successfully targeted the youth both through mainstream media (such as Vogue) and the high number of youth in the audiences. • Ensemble members were chosen specifically with the purpose of highlighting issues in relation to women in conflict and internally displaced persons, which gave this group a voice in the public discourse. • Partner organizations, readers and endorsers form an important informal network for the women’s rights issues where Ukranian Women’s Fund has a key role. • As a result of creating this network Ukranian Women’s Fund has strengthened its grass root engagement and shortened its distance to decision makers.
CASE STUDY
THE EMPTY CHAIR IN SWEDISH SCHOOLS
The Empty Chair was a collaboration between The Living History Forum, a Swedish government agency that works with issues on tolerance, democracy and human rights, Afrikagrupperna, a non governmental organization focusing on human rights issues relating to countries in Southern Africa and Hedda Produktion AB: The project was funded jointly by The Living History Forum and Arvsfonden. Target groups: • School students ages 14 – 19. • Teachers. The over all purpose of the project was: • To increase commitment and trust in democratic values. • To increase knowledge of human rights. • To increase awareness of the diplomat Per Anger and his work. In addition, the project had the following objectives: • To develop a teaching method for working with performing arts and human rights in secondary schools based on the documentary drama The Empty Chair. • Increase students involvement through an active teaching method.
The Empty Chair was carried out in 12 primary and secondary schools in five Swedish municipalities. In total, 30 teacher and 1600 students were involved in the project. During the project, the students got to know the activists through theatre and communications exercises and through this, gained a greater knowledge about what activism, courage and protecting human rights means in practise.
RESULTS
• 75,8% of students increased their interest for human rights. • 83,4% of students felt they increased their knowledge of human rights. • 80,6% of students judged they had increased their knowledge of Per Anger and his deeds for humanity during Second World war. In addition several students commented on the method of learning in a positive manner: ”We got to do something we never usually do in school and I think what I learnt in this project will stay with me for much longer because of how we did it.” (Girl at Ehrensvärdska) To a large extent the students themselves handled external communication and media which resulted in 3 articles in daily press with a total reach of 690 000 readers.
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