Artpad Project: a resource for theatre and participatory development

This training manual is aimed at development workers with an interest in integrating theatre techniques into their working practices. It emerged through participatory research and training courses held with civil society organisations in Northeast Brazil and Peru. Three case studies of youth groups are presented to explore the ways theatre is being used in development and how these created and adapted new techniques. There follows some handy advice about how to plan a workshop and what the role of a facilitator should be, as well as a series of exercises divided into four sections: Beginnings, Conflict Resolution, Issue-based work and Evaluation. The manual is accompanied by a video made by young Brazilians, in which professionals talk about the role of theatre in their work, and techniques with diverse participant groups are demonstrated to give the viewer a sense of how the techniques work in practice.