Combating Bird Flu with Laughter

According to this weblog entry, Sanggar Vidia Iswari, a Sundanese [Indonesia] culture group, is creating public awareness and understanding of the problem of avian influenza with laughter, song, music, and dance in a format called Longser. Traditional songs, dances, and a drumming group (Rampak Kendang) are being used as entertainment in the show. The public are being entertained and educated in their communities through performances in town squares of this Sundanese cultural show, called the Flu Burung Longser Show, which includes a comedy opera about a bird flu problem in a village. In this show, the audiences are engaged in conversation by the players about the bird flu. According to the author, this is substituting two-way messaging for "the usual rhetoric and boring one-way."

The following are the objectives of the Flu Burung Longser Show:

• "To increase people’s awareness and understanding of avian influenza by engaging them in interactive conversation through Longser show at eight Kabupaten/Kota in West Java.
  
• To encourage ...community participation in monitoring and responding to AI problems.
• To collect grass-root’s voice and ideas in response to AI problems for the local key stakeholders and decision makers to start or enhance their community’s AI surveillance and response mechanism".