Performance for Environmental Sustainability in Uganda: A Collective Community Engagement Approach through Theatre for Development

With the rapid economic development and population growth in Uganda, people have neglected the protection of the ecological environment to satisfy the pursuit of material life. This article discusses an ongoing Theatre for Development (TfD) project in which I explore through a Practice as Research (PaR) methodology the significance of community engagement and collective learning through TfD in pursuing environmental sustainability goals in Kigorobya, Hoima District–Bunyoro sub-region, Uganda. The ongoing work investigates how multi-stakeholder partnership and participation of people achieved in TfD can foster sustainable use of environmental resources. The practice-based research project is predicated on the notion that achieving environmental sustainability requires concerted collective community action. Consequently, to achieve ownership of environmental issues, all stakeholders in the community need to be mobilized and engaged in a collective effort to achieve a safe and habitable environment. The project interrogates: to what extent can TfD be posited as a process of achieving a plenitude of praxis and reflection on the deep-seated issues pertaining to environment sustainability?