The approach of Playback Theatre[1] has proven to work as a strong social connector in socially and culturally diverse country like Nepal. In the theatre events, community members feel encouraged and safe enough to share their personal stories from their lives including the conflict to current political and social transition. Pro Public and the trained dialogue facilitators (DFs) have by now learned to organize and implement the theatre dialogues, independently. After having the experience, Pro Public is eager to continue the playback approach to promote social cohesion – which is one of the key elements of peacebuilding – and inter-community faith in current scenario as another pilot project, differently in Nepal. There is growing feeling/sense of the Madhesi (originally plain (terai)-dwellers) and the Pahadi (originally hill-dwellers) people for few years. Thereof, sense of “we feeling” is need to be promoted in this post-conflict peacebuilding process.

Based on the experience of last three years’ of project implementation of the EnActing Dialogue on healing and reconciliation with CSSP, Berlin, Germany, Pro Public applies independently this proposal to continue similar vein of community project activity entitled “EnActing Dialogue – Promoting Social Cohesion through Playback Theatre” to promote inter-community cohesion and harmony in local communities in Nepal.

The project in 2018 aims to capacitate for the theatre-facilitated dialogue events by working with professional artists (key actor 1) as the trainers, local dialogue facilitators (DFs) (key actor 2) as the artists, and local advisory  committees (key actor 3). An outreach  to the national level policy makers and international level practitioners and academia/researchers (as part of a multi-track strategy) is clearly envisioned and would be realized in a potential next project phase in 2019 . The project will consist of 3 activities: