{"id":442,"date":"2011-02-19T06:37:01","date_gmt":"2011-02-19T06:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=442"},"modified":"2014-06-24T18:21:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T17:21:28","slug":"the-difference-between-life-and-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=442","title":{"rendered":"THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Five years ago, Patrick-Jude Oteh needed help. He asked the International Performers’ Aid Trust for support. He didn’t ask for much, just \u00a325 per month, but that small contribution has kept performers alive and brought hope to artists who are HIV positive.<\/h3>\n
\n

It is astonishing, sometimes, how small the difference between life and death can be. The tiny amounts of money can make enormous differences.<\/p>\n

Think about \u00a325 per month.<\/p>\n

It really isn\u2019t much. It\u2019s about what you might spend in a month if you bought a daily paper every day. For most of us it is the kind of sum that amounts to easily disposable income.<\/p>\n

So it might be difficult to imagine that as little as \u00a325 a month might make the difference between life and death. It is, perhaps, even harder to imagine that it might make that difference for not just one person but for four. And that, even more miraculously, it has helped to give life to another generation.<\/p>\n

Patrick-Jude Oteh is the softly spoken artistic director of the Jos Repertory Theatre in Nigeria. Jos is a city of about half a million people in the centre of Nigeria \u2013 the tenth largest city in the country. In recent years it has suffered violent religious clashes between Muslim and Christian populations. Life expectancy is low, disease is common and around 6% of 20-29 year olds are HIV positive.<\/p>\n

Despite these problems, the Jos Repertory Theatre, with a core of six administrators and database of 500 actors on which they call, is developing a considerable reputation.<\/p>\n

The Jos Repertory company tours community centres, schools and commercial centres \u2013 often performing their plays in village squares or markets. As well as formal theatre they do outreach work promoting health advice and providing schools with plays related to their curriculum.<\/p>\n

Each year they hold the Jos Festival of Theatre. In 2009 they performed seven plays in ten days. Two of these plays were new, winners of a competition for writers aged between 17 and 28 and chosen from 30 scripts they received. The festival has gone ahead even when the city has been under curfew following sectarian clashes.<\/p>\n

In 2005 one of their new plays, Our House<\/em>, was picked up by the British Council and toured the UK in a link with Clyde Unity Theatre. During that tour the two companies devised a new play, My Friend Matt<\/em>, which Clyde Unity then took on tour to Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Patrick believes that with investment in marketing the company can eventually become self-sustaining rather than being reliant on grants from organisations like The Ford Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to build a stronger repertory and to develop the festival so we can encompass a wider range of work and reach out to Abuja, the capital,\u201d Patrick told me. \u201cWe want to reach out to bigger audiences and become more firmly established.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the face of such achievements and continued ambition, how could \u00a325 donated each month by the International Performers\u2019 Aid Trust (IPAT) make a difference?<\/p>\n

In 2004 Equity\u2019s Andy Prodger was running a workshop at a conference in Lagos. Patrick was there too and learnt about the existence of IPAT. On his next visit to the UK Patrick contacted Andy and spoke to him about a problem facing the Jos company. Four of their actors were HIV positive and the company needed extra funds to support them.<\/p>\n

Andy passed them to IPAT who agreed to provide the theatre company with support.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t much money, but by providing \u00a325 a month for the the theatre company they were able to ensure that the actors maintained a proper diet. And because they were eating properly that meant the anti-HIV medication they were receiving from other sources had a chance to work. Five years later not only are all four actors still alive and still healthy but one has got married and another has had a baby \u2013 born HIV free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But the help hasn\u2019t just kept the actors alive. In line with Patrick\u2019s desire to make the Jos Theatre Company financially self-sufficient, they are now trying to do the same for these actors. The Jos Theatre Company is now helping the four actors develop their own work through their own HIV+ support group and to use that work to tour and educate other Nigerians about safe sex. As well as the educational benefits, it will ensure that these performers can make enough money to become self-sustaining and stay healthy. IPAT has extended its modest support for another year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the support from IPAT they have been able to develop normal lives,\u201d Patrick said. \u201c\u00a325 might not seem much, but in Nigeria it goes a really long way. Without support it would have been difficult for them to keep going. Without IPAT I believe that not all of them would have survived.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick hopes to return to the UK again this autumn to visit the Royal Court Theatre, which will be featuring a week of work by five young Nigerian writers.<\/p>\n

THE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMERS’ AID TRUST<\/h2>\n

The International Performers\u2019 Aid Trust is a charity for the relief of poverty amongst people involved in the performing arts in distress in all parts of the world. IPAT\u2019s decisions are made on professional and humanitarian principles, without political bias. To find out more about these projects please visit www.ipat.org.uk.<\/p>\n

The Trust will endeavour to supply such aid and encouragement as is appropriate, for the preservation of the life and health of those working in the performing arts suffering from poverty and distress to enable them to continue to develop and nurture the imaginative faculty which is the heart of drama, music and artistic performance.<\/p>\n

The International Performers\u2019 Aid Trust provides support for performers around the world, defending their rights and combating poverty.<\/p>\n

They currently fund projects in Africa, South America, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

Your donations can help IPAT\u2019s work around the world.<\/p>\n

You can make a payment by post by sending it to:
\nNigel Gooch, Honorary Treasurer,
\nInternational Performers\u2019 Aid Trust,
\nc\/o Hard Dowdy Accountants,
\n23\/28 Great Russell Street,
\nLondon WC1B 3NG<\/p>\n

Or you can donate online at the IPAT website: www.ipat.org.uk\/donate.html<\/a><\/p>\n

(Originally published in Equity<\/em> magazine, Autumn 2009. \u00a9 Equity)<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Patrick-Jude Oteh asked International Performers’ Aid Trust for support – he didn’t ask for much, just \u00a325 per month, but that small contribution saved lives and brought hope to artists who are HIV positive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[83,5,133],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/africa1-e1298097261158.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27AP7-78","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1695,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/1695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}