Being prepared can make all the difference
Dec 28 2007 by Rosie Waller, The Journal
Newcastle-based No Strings uses a team of the most experienced puppeteers in the world to make short adventure films which present life-saving messages to children and communities in the developing world. On day three of her five- day diary charting a recent trip to Indonesia with the charity she now works for, former Journal reporter Rosie Waller sees the puppets in action and finds out how successful they’ve been.
On Boxing Day morning, when the sea started behaving oddly, she begged her parents to leave for higher ground as she had a feeling something very bad was going to happen.
In the same way, the aim of the No Strings puppet films is to arm children and communities with similar knowledge, so that they can be better prepared. In the event of a tsunami, there are a number of warning signs. Usually, there is more than one wave, and later ones can be bigger than the first. Earthquakes are less easily predicted, but there are things you can do to make you safer, like covering your head for example, important things to remember, like the probability of aftershocks, and things you must avoid at all costs, like standing close to trees or buildings, or touching broken cables.
Today, we’re visiting a village school on the outskirts of Ubud, a pretty town that edges on the jungle about an hour from the coast, where facilitators trained in September by a No Strings team of puppeteers and our partner NGOs will deliver one of the first school presentations in an area where earthquakes are not uncommon.
There are 120 children in the class, boys and girls of between eight and 12-years-old, each in pretty red and white batique shirts, the girls with long plaits in their hair.
To get them thinking about the subject, they are sent outside in groups with crossword puzzles to do which test their knowledge. There’s a multiple choice task when they get back inside, and then the facilitators come in with their hand puppets which the children love, and a song about earthquakes sung to the tune of Frere Jacques.
Given the prevalence of earthquakes here, something the children are frightened of, it’s lovely to see their reaction to the film. They fall about laughing when boxes fall on Badu’s head in his shop. They hang on to every piece of action as the Little Girl and the Squirrel lead the villagers to safety, and go through their emergency kits. After the film, the puppeteers give a question and answer session, and children get up to fill in a full-scale version of the crosswords they did earlier.
For Johnie McGlade, No Strings founder, who’s spent so long working with all the relevant groups to make this happen, it’s a very rewarding visit.
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Local staff and the 2004 tsunami
IT takes little imagination to realise that helping in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami three years ago was horrendous work.
The initial clean up involved the removal first and foremost of bodies, tens of thousands of them in this, the most devastated region of the Indian Ocean disaster.
Many Indonesian workers found themselves not only with huge numbers of people to help, but suddenly pivoted into managerial roles they had no experience for. The emotional burden must have been extraordinary, and took its toll.
Tanya Barnfield, of the Jesuit Refugee Service, remembers meeting several Indonesian staff a year-and-a-half on from the disaster.
“There were some who you had to say were on the verge of nervous breakdowns.”
What she found, during the training workshops No Strings and its local Indonesian partners put together in September this year, was that some of the facilitators began to come out of themselves.
“Because learning puppetry skills is creative it seemed to be very therapeutic,” she says, “and everyone had to be animated and really get out of their safety zone.
“They did this presentation in front of a large group of local dignitaries, and you could tell that they really enjoyed it.
“What’s been really interesting about this is that many of the facilitators have since come up with other ideas of their own about how best to get messages across to people.
“It’s like it’s really opened up new doors for them. They’ve already contacted Unicef and a whole range of other agencies to come and see them work, and they’re coming up with ideas like adapting scripts for radio.
No Strings is seeking to raise funds and attract sponsors to support future programmes in areas such as HIV/Aids and climate change. For more information about No Strings, please contact Rosie Waller on rosiewaller2000@yahoo.co.uk, or visit the No Strings website at www.nostrings.org.uk
