Nora Engra Soria, student of the Master’s Degree in Developed Aid in Valencia carried out her Master’s degree final project (TFM) from the Service-Learning titled: “Empoderamiento y fortalecimiento de los derechos en comunidades de Sucre (Bolivia) con poblaciones migrantes, campesinas e indígenas” directed by the Dr. Mercedes Botija.
This work was developed as a service-learning experience (APS), combining social intervention with the university training process. The intervention was done in the rural community of Ckochas (Bolivia), in collaboration with rural indigenous women linked to the Instituto Politécnico Tomás Katari.
The process culminated with the collective theatrical representation of an adaptation of the work “Interculturalidad, género y salud afectivo sexual: creando espacios de apoyo mutuo”, taking as reference the work done by the Asociación para la Cooperación Entre Comunidades (ACOEC) located in Benimaclet (Valencia). This performance was a result of a participative process of communitarian artistic creation, framed inside the project “El arte y las mujeres indígenas de Bolivia frente a las desigualdades de género”.
The project had a double goal:
- Favouring gender equality and communitarian sensitisation through artistic methodologies.
- Reinforcing personal empowerment and collective of the participant women through the use of theatre as a transformation tool.
At the same time, a research about the behaviours towards gender equality before and after the intervention, which made it able to confirm the positive impact of participative theatre in rural contexts with structural inequalities.
This experience of service-learning (APS) evidenced the value of integrating creative and intercultural focuses of social transformation and in the public policies of social services, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (ODS) related to gender equality, quality education and inequality reduction.
