Impressions from the Viva con Agua international art, music and culture festival ‘Millerntor Gallery 2024’

How can the broader public be mobilised to stand up for development goals like water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and gender equality?

This question was at the heart of a workshop and a panel discussion on 31 May at the 2024 Millerntor Gallery, an international art, music and culture festival hosted by the ‘All Profit’ organisation Viva con Agua and FC St. Pauli in Hamburg, Germany. Jan Schlenk, GIZ, who collaborated with Viva con Agua on the award-winning Dance4WASH project, thinks that development cooperation has a lot to learn from Viva von Agua and its network of artists, activists and influencers when it comes to reaching wider audiences and winning them over for positive social change. This is why he and his colleagues of the Sector Programme ‘Water and Sanitation Policy – Innovations for Resilience’ (InnoBlue), implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit on behalf of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, invited GIZ colleagues working on other development goals to come along so they, too, would be inspired and get a first-hand experience of the power of positive activism.

Villa Viva – a social enterprise and ‘place of togetherness’

In the early afternoon of 31 May, around 25 participants from non-government organisations, foundations, development agencies and academia– all of them working on ‘WASH for All’ and related development goals – gathered at the Villa Viva hotel in Hamburg, one of Viva con Agua’s innovative social enterprises: Villa Viva reinvests a significant proportion of its profits into WASH projects, so that everyone who decides to stay there contributes to Water for All. In addition to hotel rooms, Villa Viva provides spaces for art and cultural exchanges in service of ‘positive togetherness’. The workshop that participants had come to attend was a case in point: its design allowed participants to fully engage with the subject matter – gender equality – in a series of highly interactive and playful activities.

Challenging gender norms with an Universal Languages approach

Belinda Abraham of the Viva con Agua team facilitated the workshop and got participants to open up right from the start: ‘As icebreaker the participants had to think of, and perform, typical “gender poses” from the world of sports. This was not just great fun, it also helped break down barriers and fostered open dialogue about gender norms – very different from typical discussions in more formal settings’, she describes.

In another playful exercise, participants became aware of gender stereotypes still prevalent in the Global North as much as in the Global South. After agreeing which of them they would most like to challenge, they were tasked, in small groups, to develop Universal Language communication campaigns, tackling stereotypes through arts, sports and music in ways that foster joy and inclusivity.

After one hour of intense discussion, role plays, rehearsals and much laughter, the teams were ready to present: Their campaigns built on pop music, poetry and youth culture – and got great applause. Belinda smiles: ‘The energy participants put into this task showed, once again, how joy-based approaches like Universal Languages can transform discussions on development and social issues. Not just in partner countries – here in Germany, too.’

A ‘Cozy Couch Conversation’ on Positive Masculinity

In the evening of the same day, Belinda involved several of the workshop participants in a ‘Cozy Couch Conversation on Positive Masculinity’ at the Millerntor Gallery festival. Many young people attended the event and contributed their views via Slido polls.

Julius Lwegaba of Welthungerhilfe, described the work he has been doing with girls, women, boys and men in discussion and learning circles in Uganda’s Karamoja region to break the taboos around topics like gender-based violence, menstruation, and sexual health. ‘Positive masculinity’, he said, ‘is about men being willing to be part of the conversation, for example on what it takes to ensure that girls no longer miss school just because they have their periods.’

You are currently viewing a placeholder content from YouTube. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.

More Information

Unblock content Accept required service and unblock content

Alexander Haack of GIZ’s Energising Development (EnDev) programme, agreed and pointed at the role that modern technology can play in overcoming gender inequality: The improved cooking stoves his programme has been introducing in countries like Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda are more efficient – and this reduces the time that kids and women spend on gathering firewood. Time which now can be spend on education or income generating activities, creating new perspectives. Just as energy access technologies can be gender transformative, positive masculinity can help in shaping a society where empowerment, respect, and growth are the driving forces.

Janina Breitling, founder of nookees foundation and vocal advocate for more open and positive conversations about menstruation, explained what happened when Agnes, the wife of Viva con Agua co-founder Micha Fritz, suggested to him that they publicly endorse the nookee period products. Micha not only took a photograph of the two of them, he also borrowed his wife’s nookees to create a picture that shows what positive masculinity towards menstrual projects can look like. And yes, the picture went viral.

Positive activism has boosted GIZ’s work on menstrual health and hygiene

Also on the couch was Inonge Kaloustian, a member of Zambia’s national women’s football team and recent recipient of a masters degree from Johns Hopkins in social epidemiology. Inonge is a Goodwill Ambassador for the GIZ-supported #kickTheSTIGMA social impact campaign and has been advocating for increased menstrual health and hygiene resources on the African continent. She shared with Belinda that it made her incredibly happy and proud to see how the campaign was touching people and changing the way they think and talk about menstruation. ‘Even Kookoo, my grandmother, is loving it’, Inonge said.

Jan Schlenk, technical advisor at GIZ’s Water and Sanitation Policy programme ‘InnoBlue’, is a fan of Inonge and a firm believer in the power of the positive activism that people like her, Janina Breitling and Micha Fritz have been employing in their campaigns for development goals. ‘Our collaboration with local influencers in Nepal, Albania and the Philippines (see this article) has shown that their openness and personal engagement have changed the public discourse, open conversation and the attitudes towards menstrual health and hygiene in their countries. We couldn’t have done this without them.’

‘It’s about the “All!”’

When Belinda Abraham asked the audience, via Slido, how positive activism could lead to transformative change they replied that it activated people instead of threatening them, creating positive emotions instead of anxiety. ‘People wrote: “Positive activism is about change with love and not hate.” I really liked that.’

According to Belinda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) go far beyond the ‘development bubble’: ‘The beauty of the SDGs is that it is not just one sector, one person, one group, one anything – it’s everyone. That’s the whole idea! To me the most important SDG is increasingly number 17 because it is about partnerships. In the end, that’s what positive activism shows: It’s about you and me, it’s about the “All”.’

Anna von Roenne
July 2024