The theatre on Interactive Resource Centre (IRC) has received a considerable approbation from the viewers on the first day, which portrayed stories of bravery of countryside women, showing scenes of reality.
The Interactive Resource Centre, Lahore, presented its theatre festival "journey through the lives of courageous women" at N.I.C building here.
The theatre started with an introductory speech of IRC Director M. Waseem, who threw light on the development and struggle of marginalised communities of Pakistan.
He said that through this festival, they wanted to pay tribute to the women, who faced hardship and adversity but struggled hard, and now they were better off and successful.
Gender equality project's programme co-ordinator Sabira Qureshi explained how they came with the idea of bringing the stories of these women through interactive theatre. The attitudinal change through interactive theatre was the most meaningful and a quick tool, she said further.
From Asia Foundation, Rashida Dohad said that the dialogue on democracy and social equality had been conducted effectively with the support of IRC, and they all had to use effective and efficient paraphernalia to open discussions and dialogues on social evils.
The IRC has been working with these marginalised communities in 87 districts of Pakistan and 50 theatre groups have been formed till now. During Monday's festival, there were seven groups from communities, who were gathered to stage their performances.
The theatre was open to all.
The first play was on Indo-Pakistan peace. The underlying theme on this theatre performance was to highlight the basic issues of the underprivileged people of both the countries, whose basic needs of food, clothing and shelter had never been addressed properly.
The second play was on the success story of Bilquees Afsar from Haripur, who is at present a tehsil councillor and working on the education of women in her area. The play was followed by interaction with the audience. There were six interactions from the audience.
The first day of the festival concluded with applause from the audience of Islamabad.