Parasite street science

Project Overview:

Parasite Street Science will tackle the serious issue of broken trust between scientists, health professionals and local communities affected by sleeping sickness in Malawi. We will work with local community members, scientists, medical practitioners/ health professionals and theatre practitioners in order to facilitate multi directional knowledge exchange. The community members we will work with will be those with lived experience of sleeping sickness. The project will create and tour a new interactive performance in Malawi. The performance style will be interactive outdoor work where the audiences are invited to directly participate in the performance in a familiar informal setting, rather than the passive engagement of watching a performance on a stage in an arts venue. The performances will, in their nature, be enjoyable and fun and will encourage direct interaction between the performers and the audiences. Performances will be supported by two digital elements ensuring a tangible legacy to the project: 1. An online interactive resource enabling further discussion between the public and scientists around new scientific information and ways of addressing sleeping sickness for show audiences and a wider online audience. 2. An interactive practical guide that leads scientists, local community members and theatre makers through the process of developing and performing their own similar public engagement performances The long-term goal of the project will be to improve trust, thereby increasing dialogue and awareness of diagnostics and treatment options, and ultimately drive down disease burden.