Singing and Dancing for Health: Traditional music and dance for health education and promotion in rural northern Ghana

short link: http://bit.ly/sngdnc4h

Singing and Dancing for Health Banner (December 2015)

Goals and Methods

We aim to create, evaluate, and refine effective music and dance interventions for public health education and promotion in the developing world. In particular, we seek to collaboratively develop and assess the impact of participatory "dance dramas" (comprising music, song, dance, poetry, drama, and comedy) for public health education in northern Ghana, that country's most underdeveloped area, partnering with a Ghanaian performing arts/education NGO experienced in applications of music and dance to development projects.

Thus far, our focus is two critical health care issues: sanitation/cholera and malaria. We are also seeking funding to add two additional dance dramas: one centered on Ebola awareness, and another centered on Maternal and Neonatal Health.

The research model entails the following components, in collaboration with Youth Home Cultural Group, an arts-based NGO based in Tamale, Ghana, and local representatives of Ghana Health Service in each locale.

Preliminary stages:

• We compose scripts, music, choreography for each of the two issues. Scripts are vetted by public health experts in Canada. These dramas are then extensively rehearsed
• We stage these theatre pieces in a small village (Jenkeriyili) located close to the regional capital of Tamale, and professionally video record them.
• From these recordings, we produce edited, English- subtitled video recordings suitable for broadcast on local, national, or international television, or for distribution via Internet or DVD copies. (See links below.)
• We identify partner villages, and work to secure support from local chiefs and elders, members of the elected assembly, Ghana Health Service, and other respected authorities.

Pre-intervention, intervention, post-intervention stages:

• Pre-intervention research. We carry out preliminary health studies in three villages, establishing baseline estimations of knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP surveys) relevant to these health issues, developing rapport, and publicizing the project.
• Interventions and associated research. Then we perform the dance dramas (featuring a professional group based in Tamale) live in each village, alongside workshops encouraging residents’ active participation and learning, enhancing sustainability. These events, gathering as much of each village as possible and including also local village performing groups for greater participatory inclusion, are documented through ethnomusicological fieldwork, to better understand the method's strengths and weaknesses.
• Post-intervention research.
  • Immediately following each intervention we conduct a focus group with Junior High School aged children to find out how they viewed the intervention, what they liked or disliked, and how it could have been improved to become more effective.
  • In the following 6 months, we periodically return to repeat the same KAP health studies. We also conduct "tracking" research, contacting the same individuals periodically to find out about changes in local practices that may be related to either dance drama. In this way, we will be able to assess the impact of our interventions, and to refine them.
• Post-intervention sustainability: Videos may be screened indefinitely, or broadcast on TV. Live performances by professionals are expensive and not sustainable. Therefore we will seek additional funding to establish local "singing and dancing for health" groups in each village. Such youth groups will be equipped and trained by professionals, and subsequently will perform on school, civic, and traditional holidays, drawing an audience to hear health messaging, or speeches by Ghana Health Services. Performance knowledge having become localized, we anticipate that it will enter into oral tradition, to be passed down through subsequent generations. Monitoring and further research will be required to verify this.

Objectives and Outputs

This pilot study, conducted over approximately 10 months, will result in presentations, publications, and external funding applications to development agencies including CIHR, DFATD, IDRC, Grand Challenges, Gates, Ford, WHO, Unicef, and others, as opportunities become available.

The results promise great significance to ethnomusicology and global health, in light of three recent trends: (a) exponential growth in "applied" ethnomusicology since the 1990s; (b) advent of a more recent subdiscipline, medical ethnomusicology; (c) global health studies, increasingly recognizing the importance of culturally-sensitized communications and the role of "edu-entertainment" in public health campaigns.

Research Team and Funding

Team:

• Youth Home Cultural Group
• Ghana Health Service
• Chiefs palaces and other local village authorities
• Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology
• Professors Michael Frishkopf (Professor of Music, University of Alberta; Director of Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology) and David Zakus (Professor of Distinction in Global Health, Ryerson University)

Funding was provided by a Killam Cornerstone Grant ($42k), with additional support from the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry (FoMD) Division of Community Engagement ($7k), Faculty of Arts ($2k), Centre for Health and Culture, Department of Family Medicine, FoMD ($1k), and DFATD/CIDA ($1k).

Status (June 2015)

Pre-intervention and post-intervention research, as well as the interventions themselves (performances) is all complete. We are now engaged in an assessment phase. Please see below for some video results.

We have also established a local "Drumming and Dancing for Health" youth group in Tolon, thanks to funding from folkwaysAlive! that provided for equipment (drums, costumes) and training (for two weeks).

A second such group has now been funded by the President's Fund (UofA) and is planned for Ziong; subsequently we will seek funding for Gbungbaliga as well. We expect that such local groups will serve to maintain sustainable messaging, but further monitoring and research is planned to evaluate this strategy and refine it as needed.

Research sites and maps

Initial research centered on three sites - three villages of varying sizes and locations, all Dagbani speaking.

• Tolon (large)
• Ziong (near Nanton; smaller)
• Gbungbaliga (near Yendi; smallest)

Map of all proposed research/performance sites. The three actual research sites are marked in dark green; the video site (Jekeriyili) is marked in light green.

Map of Tolon District, showing some of the smaller outlying villages where we have performed ancillary research.

Video outputs

Local production (full subtitled dance dramas):

Sanitation and Cholera drama (September 2014)

Malaria drama (September 2014)

Excerpt from on-site ethnomusicological media research:

Excerpt of Malaria drama, performed at Ziong, December 2014.

News

Citi MF Online (Ghana)