Uganda

We've just got back from Uganda, where we have spent a couple of weeks working on a theatre outreach projects, using the puppets from our touring productions Pinocchio & Wooden Heart. 

We were volunteering for The Molly & Paul Childcare Foundation, which offers homes and education for some of Uganda’s many orphaned children.  The puppets were instrumental to our work, and were used as tools to deliver health education workshops in some of the charity’s primary schools- exploring preventive measures against malaria and the importance of drinking safe, clean water.

We also delivered several performances of our show Pinocchio, for the children and also for the wider community, alongside working with a secondary school to create a piece of theatre that was performed by the students, which used the greek myth of Prometheus as a starting point. Watch this space for a filmed extract of the piece- which was performed beautifully by a large number of students, representing every year group in the school.

The trip was enabled in part by donations from our audience members and fan base, with the remainder being subsidised by the company.  Puppets and equipment were also donated by individuals and also Mallets Home Hardware store, which were gifted to the charity when we left.

We can’t thank our generous audience members and sponsors enough. The work we did out there, enabled by those donations, has been far-reaching and more fulfilling than we could have hoped, on both sides.  The whole team has been alternately inspired, humbled, delighted and moved by our all-too-brief visit.

We hope that our relationship with the foundation will continue to grow. Our first visit has taught us so much about what theatre for development can do, and we have some projects in the pipeline that will build on our experiences and create an opportunity for future collaboration between cube theatre and the community who so warmly welcomed us. You'll hear about it here first.