The UNFPA has come on board to support the first ever Arts Awareness Month – which is a celebration of performing arts in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
This partnership with the UNFPA recognizes the importance of arts as advocacy to encourage audiences to start the conversation on sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence.
This past month of March, saw the latest of a three part series, titled ‘Letters from Bradley’, written by local playwright Andrew Kuliniasi and produced in partnership with Focus Marketing Solutions, played out to an audience of over 300 audience members.
The other two plays are ‘He is Victor’ and ‘For my Father’ and all three plays confront audiences with questions of acceptance, sexuality, violence and grief, bringing audiences behind closed doors and into the unspoken realities of modern Papua New Guinea.
One key takeaway has been the repeated calls to bring these pieces to wider audiences and to more locations in the country.
UNFPA will continue to work with the producers to keep the conversations going and bring these plays to more audiences through 2023.