Between Martinique and Saint Lucia, the Konbit association is experimenting with feminist cooperation based on the Theatre of the Oppressed. With the X = Y Theater project, the stage becomes a space to discuss gender-based and sexual violence (GBV), train local actors, and build a shared culture of equality. Interview with Louise Duchâteau, project coordinator for Konbit.
In the fight against sexist and sexual violence, words sometimes fail us. Out of fear, out of modesty, out of habit of silence, or because certain forms of violence are so entrenched in social relations that they become difficult to name.
It is precisely here that theatre can become a powerful tool. Not simply as a means of raising awareness, but as a living method to make situations visible, open up dialogue, and allow everyone to position themselves differently.
This is the challenge taken up by the Martinique-based association Konbit with the X = Y Theater project, developed between Martinique and Saint Lucia within the framework of the CORÉOM program. Founded in 2008, Konbit has for several years relied on forum theatre and theatre of the oppressed to create spaces for dialogue, social transformation and popular education.
With this project, the association takes a new step: using this artistic practice to build regional cooperation around gender equality and the prevention of gender-based and sexual violence.
A Caribbean ambition that finds its starting point
The story of X = Y Theater doesn't begin with the CORÉOM call for projects. Since its creation, Konbit has been committed to reaching out to the Caribbean. The organization senses that the issues it addresses in Martinique – violence, power dynamics, gender inequality, and access to voice – also resonate in neighboring territories.
In Saint Lucia, needs had already been identified: local stakeholders were looking for new methods to address gender-based violence, particularly among young people. They sought more interactive, more embodied tools, capable of moving beyond top-down approaches.
When the call for projects is launched, Konbit already has a clear intention, a proven tool, and a pre-existing relationship with a local partner. The program doesn't create the project from scratch; it provides the means for it to come to fruition.
This is one of the first lessons learned from this experience: regional cooperation is all the more successful when it is based on desires already present, needs identified and relationships of trust initiated.
In Saint Lucia, a key partner
The project relies on a direct partner in Saint Lucia: Do Nation Foundation. Its role is crucial. The organization facilitates the project's integration into the local community, mobilizes local stakeholders, organizes logistical arrangements, and provides access to an ecosystem of associations, youth organizations, and cultural actors.
Around this main partner, several local organizations are mobilized, including Dramacan, 758 Pride, Key Club SJC, Empower'Her and Do Nation Foundation itself.
This dynamic reveals much about how regional cooperation is built. Simply identifying a partner on paper is not enough. Success often depends on a key partner, capable of opening doors, building trust, and connecting the project to a broader local network.
In Konbit's case, this partnership relationship has been a powerful lever. It serves as a reminder that cooperation cannot be decreed from a single project: it is built through relationships, meetings, adjustments, and the ability to learn together.
Keep the tool alive before passing it on
The first stage of the project consisted of conducting an exploratory mission to Saint Lucia. This phase allowed us to meet local stakeholders, better understand the realities of the territory, and present the forum theatre tool in a concrete way.
This choice is essential, because forum theatre cannot truly be understood until it is experienced. It is not a method that can simply be explained in a meeting or on paper. One must see how a scene is constructed, how the audience participates, how situations can be replayed, transformed, and rearranged.
The exploratory mission was therefore much more than a reconnaissance mission. It allowed us to test local support, adjust the project, and create the conditions for future training.
This is one of the important contributions of this experience to the capitalization of CORÉOM: in cooperation projects, taking the time to explore is not a detour. It is often what allows us to secure the future.
Train local relays
The project then continued with an intensive 35-hour training course in forum theatre. Fifteen professionals and volunteers were trained in the use of this method to address sexist and sexual violence and gender-based violence.
The training enabled participants to work from real-life situations, create scenes, experiment with facilitation techniques, and prepare workshops for local audiences. Three forum theatre scenes were created, followed by five experimental workshops conducted in the field.
The objective was therefore not only to raise public awareness. It was about transmitting a method, training intermediaries and enabling Saint Lucian stakeholders to take ownership of the tool.
This logic of transmission is central. The project does not function as a one-off intervention from Martinique; it seeks to build local capacity. Theatre becomes a training medium, but also a tool that those trained can reuse in their own organizations.
Adapting teaching methods to the realities on the ground
As is often the case in cooperation projects, implementation also revealed discrepancies between what had been envisioned and the reality on the ground.
Konbit thought they were primarily targeting professionals or volunteers already aware of gender issues. However, the profiles were more diverse: very young people, volunteers, actors from cultural or youth organizations, with very different levels of knowledge about gender-based and sexual violence.
This diversity presented a methodological challenge. How can we talk about gender when the reference points are not shared? How can we gather perceptions of gender-based violence if some people do not yet have the words to name it? How can we address these subjects without being confrontational, but without abandoning the need for transformation?
Konbit had to adjust its teaching methods. The team reinforced the progressive approach, created theoretical resources, implemented a questionnaire on perceptions and experiences of gender-based and sexual violence in Saint Lucia, and used theatre as an entry point through lived experience.
Here again, experience provides valuable lessons for other projects: the target audiences never quite match what was anticipated. A collaborative project must be able to adapt without losing its focus.
What CORÉOM made possible
«"If you don't experience forum theatre, you don't really understand it."»
Creole as a language of cooperation
One of the strongest effects of the project appeared along the way: the use of Creole.
Konbit experimented with scenes entirely or partially in Creole, in a context where exchanges also circulated between French, English, and Caribbean Creoles. Some scenes could mix several languages, with one person speaking in Creole and another responding in English.
This result is not merely linguistic. It opens up a new dimension to the project. Forum theatre made it possible to create a space where languages could respond to one another, where bodies, situations, and emotions facilitated understanding beyond the usual barriers.
Creole then becomes more than just a language of communication. It becomes a language of regional cooperation, a common space between Caribbean territories, a tool for cultural recognition and connection.
A stage to transform silences
In a context where sexist and sexual violence is still too often silenced, minimized or relegated to the private sphere, the project led by Konbit reminds us of one essential thing: talking about violence is already a step towards transforming power relations.
By giving young people, field actors and communities tools to name, represent and question these violences, X = Y Theater makes theatre a space for speech, reparation and action.
This is the strength of this cooperation: using art not as a simple awareness-raising tool, but as a living method to open up dialogue, strengthen equality and build, from island to island, Caribbean solidarity in the face of gender-based violence.
- Check out the video of one of KONBIT's missions in Saint Lucia!