SOA Students Draw Attention Towards Gender Violence Through Street Plays

Bhubaneswar: Street plays are perhaps the most effective medium of spreading social awareness and when they are enacted by youngsters, the impact is even more. In one such initiative, students of SOA (Deemed University) took to the streets to enacted plays at ten places in Bhubaneswar on the subject of gender violence, particularly against children. Enacting the play, ”Pari Pain Katha Tie”, under the banner of SOA Dramatic Society, ‘Toneelstuk’, the students staged the plays on December 1 and 2 at different locations.

“The term gender violence often conveys the idea that violence is often resorted to maintain structural gender inequalities and includes all kinds of violence against men, women and children. We wanted to call a halt to this, particularly against children,” said Sangram Keshari Kochiary, one of the performers. “We wanted to send out a strong message against such crime,” he said.

The street plays were sponsored by Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) and supported by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and UNFPA.

Besides Kochiary, the actors included Surya Narayan Pati, Saswat Pani, Banisa Nayak, Anshu Aman, Sourav Padhi, Shreyash Mohapatra, Narayan Mishra, Namala Kajol, Nupur Dash. Abhilash Das and Pinaki Bisoi while Asman Chowdhry and Supriya Nayak provided backstage support.