Mingkaman IDP camp, South Sudan, where communities are continuously at risk from cholera outbreaks. Photo credit: Oxfam UK

No Strings is now in the process of developing two new films for children and communities in South Sudan, a country just five years old but where people continue to be affected by ongoing cycles of conflict.

The consequent mass movement of peoples compounds the impact of killer diseases like diarrhoea, cholera and malaria. In partnership with CRS, Catholic Relief Services, our films will focus on vital prevention and treatment messages around these issues.

No Strings director Johnie McGlade introduces a puppet to children in a camp child friendly space area

A little girl at the Mingkaman IDP camp tries her hand puppeteering for the first time

Once key messages are identified by a committee of expert advisers in South Sudan, our production team will develop scripts around two films, one on malaria, the other WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) and cholera. We’ll then develop characters and sets appropriate for use with both adults and children, in some ways a bit of a first for No Strings.

We’ll work with the committee to understand which languages the films should be dubbed into first, and then get our training team out to introduce South Sudanese partners to techniques that help audiences think more deeply about how they might apply the lessons in the key messages to keep themselves and their families safer, through puppet and play techniques which have worked so well in other parts of the world.