There were bad guys, an attractive heroine, a love triangle, sleezy hustlers, lots of tempting business opportunities, sex & crime, and quite some cashmere goats involved, when invited guests and stakeholders of the “My Green Mongolia” campaign had a good laugh at a funny role play put on stage of the Holiday Inn Lounge in Ulaanbaatar on 26 Aug, 2022.
The plot of the play was acted out by representatives of the “My Green Mongolia” campaign stakeholders and experienced media professionals. They developed the basic storyline of radio drama series during a 4-day workshop on 23-26 Aug, 2022. The Mongolian radio drama specialists were assisted by Manfred Oepen of ACT Assist from Germany, Sean Southey, the Chair of IUCN-CEC from Canada, and a moderation team of PCC – People Centered Conservation.
The radio drama series starting in December 2022 will have 26 episodes of 13-15 min each, to be broadcast weekly as part of 30-60 minute environmental radio shows of commercial and public radio stations. In addition, the drama series will be distributed through an audio podcast via online and mobile phone service providers. The target audiences are urban and rural youth and herder families. The radio drama series is part of the “My Green Mongolia” that has been initiated by GIZ SPACES and like-minded stakeholders working on environmental education and communication. The drama will focus on overgrazing and the excessive use of natural resources while the story evolves with cliff hangers and plot twists between episodes – the bad guys will be punished, the good ones rewarded.
During the workshop, participants co-created a message board, a good and bad values grid, character profiles for two positive, two negative and five transitional characters, and a story arch that covers the 26 episodes.
As GIZ SPACES is currently developing a website that contributes to the “My Green Mongolia” campaign, existing as well as newly produced media and materials by GIZ and other stakeholders will be uploaded to the website so that they will be publicly available. This will also be the case for the radio drama series.
