Our Projects

No Strings' first project, ChucheQhalin, or The Story of The Little Carpet Boy, was created for children and families in Afghanistan whose safety is constantly threatened by the country's many millions of landmines.

Originally, the idea was to train up local people in puppetry to take a live show around the country, but the deteriorating security situation made the team reconsider; Kathy Mullen and Michael Frith developed a format using film followed by a carefully coordinated question-and-answer session with live hand puppets which has proved extremely effective, and continues to be the main No Strings means of distribution.

The film is an adventure story containing a series of clear safety lessons, and is being taken to schools and community groups in the Kabul region, where possible, by off-road eRanger motorbikes, which have a self-sufficient sidecar unit containing a huge screen, projector, generator, etc. Other means of distribution are also being used, and the film is regularly broadcast on Afghan TV.

No Strings is also active in South East Asia, where a series of puppet films teach children vitally important messages about how to prepare for and be safe during natural disasters.

These four short films contain key lessons about earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and floods and landslides. A fifth film in our Tales of Disasters series is a special peace advocacy film called Two Gardens, and is shown in regions which have experienced community tensions.

No Strings works through local partners, whose trained staff are taking all five films to school children and community groups in key areas of Indonesia, using hand puppets to animate their follow-up question-and-answer activities. 

In April this year, No Strings will visit The Philippines to assess how to distribute these films in regions there affected by similar issues.

A core element of all No Strings productions is that the puppets are easily identifiable within individual countries, culturally sensitive, and inspired by local folklore, animal life and traditions. Once the films are dubbed and handed to our local partners to be distributed around schools and the wider community, they feel very much a home-produced part of its culture.

No Strings is now working with the global media training and support group Internews on a series of three maternal and child health-related films, a project we hope to get started in May this year. 

As with The Philippines, an ongoing priority is to distribute elements of our core programme for use in other parts of the world affected by similar issues.

In the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami, No Strings field-tested a pilot project to help reduce the high anxiety levels children were still experiencing, and which presented them with empowering information about what to do should a similar emergency re-occur. We are now looking into extending our Indonesian peace advocacy programme to Sri Lanka to deal with issues brought about by the renewed conflict there

With this in progress, No Strings' next focus will be a major educational puppet film programme for issues relating to the devastating and ongoing Aids crisis.