Negative stereotypes of “the other,” particularly ethnic minority groups, continue to embed divisions across ethnic, religious, and other dividing lines, creating an enabling an environment for violence in many communities in Myanmar. Urban areas, in particular, are a common place for these divisions to arise due to the migration from diverse parts of the country and breakdown of social ties.
Together with MRTV into the Next Phase
Funded by the Paung Sie Facility, the second phase of our project, Let’s Think, Let’s Change: Promoting Diversity through Popular Culture,” builds on the successes and lessons learned from our previous project of the same title in Myanmar. We launched this one year phase in December 2017. This second phase was designed based on the demand of our existing partners, particularly Myanmar Radio and Television, community members, and stakeholders based in Myanmar.
Promoting Diversity Through a New Lens
The overall goal of the project is to promote the acceptance of diversity as a social norm in Myanmar, reducing enabling environments for inter-communal violence and public unrest, with the following outcomes in mind. The first is to increase public awareness and understanding of the importance of collaboration and respect across various divides (outcome from Phase I). The next is to foster dialogues among divided communities in order to promote inter-ethnic, and inter-religious positive interaction (outcome from Phase I). The final outcome is to foster dialogue and collaborative solutions between the government and youth (new outcome).
To achieve these objectives, we are initiating activities including youth training summits about social cohesion, story development and exchange workshops, a televised production of Let’s Think, Let’s Change, the Let’s Think, Let’s Changeradio show, and mentoring sessions for facilitators for diversity dialogues.
Search Myanmar released the Tip of the Needle drama series on DVB, Channel-9, Mizzima and MRTV. This was complemented by a radio show broadcast on MRTV. The drama series focused on key local issues as identified through youth-led research:
- Drug abuse by youth and how parents deal with this challenging situation.
- Misuse of Facebook across the country and how some users mistakenly deliver/share hate speech.
- Transforming Conflict: how to collaborate and find mutual-understanding between diverse needs, views, and opinions.
Tip of the Needle is also now available on Youtube and Facebook and we have developed Facilitator Guide in Myanmar and English to support educational institutions, CSOs, and INGOs to lead dialogues in their communities on the issues raised in the TV and radio shows.
Listen to an episode of “Let’s Think, Let’s Change” (in Myanmar):