Hansel, Gretel, and the Chinchorro: A Live Performance Entertainment Education Approach to Chagas Disease in Rural Ecuador

ABSTRACT

Impoverished rural communities are disproportionately affected by a neglected tropical disease called Chagas disease. Because it is a disease that affects the poor, governments inconsistently respond and, when they respond, governments use insecticides that are expensive for the affected communities and unhealthy for their inhabitants. Primary prevention of Chagas disease is essential. The present study reports on an entertainment education approach that sought to raise awareness of Chagas and its insect vector, the triatomine bug. As part of our ongoing efforts in rural Ecuador, we worked with the children of Chaquizhca to create plays that would promote awareness of triatomine bugs and associate the bugs with Chagas disease. Through an analysis of the plays the children wrote, we demonstrate opportunities and challenges that local scale entertainment education approaches face in when adopting community-centered participatory approaches in rural communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Entertainment-education
• community intervention
• Chagas disease
• children

Acknowledgments

Above all, we thank the children of Chaquizhca for their creativity and participation in this process. We thank the teachers in Chaquizhca for inviting us into their classrooms. Anita Villacis delivered the formal didactic education on triatomine bugs and the risks of Chagas disease to the children.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded with assistance from Plan Internacional-Ecuador, Children’s Heartlink, GID-FIC-NIH [D43TW008261]; and Ohio University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador. The funders played no role in the reporting or interpretation of the data.