Group appeals for sponsors to fund awareness campaign

By BRADLEY MARIORI
A THEATRE group in Lae is seeking sponsors to capture school audiences through drama and play on drug and alcohol abuse and gender-based violence awareness.
Seeds Theatre Inc director Sam Sommi said the group had been carrying out educational awareness regarding diseases, drugs and alcohol, violence and social issues during national elections for 23 years, but, their activities were disrupted by the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak.
“We normally get our funding from AusAID, United Nations Women, Oxfam, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Unicef (United Nations International Children’s Fund) and the Canadian High Commission, but our activities were put on hold due to the Covid-19,” he said.
“We have now decided to carry out awareness of drugs and alcohol abuse and gender-based violence in
schools through the use of drama and we need sponsors to help us carry these out.
“We never get any funding from the Government to do awareness and help educate the people but from other organisations since we started the group in 1997.
“We’ve helped trained 76 theatre groups in Morobe who were involved in HIV/AIDS awareness and health and hygiene promotion around the province.”
Sommi said dramatising the cause and effects of a certain bad practice would help people to understand and change and they needed help to help school children to be better people when they grew up.
“There are underage children who are now consuming drugs and alcohol and the right place to bring them together and talk to them are in the schools,” he said.