The Team - TV, Radio and Internet Drama for Social Change
MLC Vanguard | Created by Search for Common Ground
The Team works to promote a mass shift in consciousness in order to prevent intolerance and encourage social inclusion, through television, radio and internet programming catalyzing social change
4,800,000 Lives Impacted
In 21 Global South countries, we have produced 350 TV episodes and 1300 radio episodes of a dramatic series, called "The Team." Each series combines the global passion for sport with one of the world’s most popular entertainment forms – multi-episodic drama. In each place, the plot focuses on a fictional soccer team (except in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where we use cricket). In addition, most series have a robust presence on the internet. We also implement extensive outreach campaigns that involve screenings for targetted communities, followed by facilitated dialogue, and we make available DVD sets to CSOs, schools and local governments. The core metaphor for each of our series is simple: If players do not cooperate and overcome their differences, they will not score goals, and they will lose. In each country, the characters in "The Team" reflect the diversity of the place and of its conflicts – whether ethnic, tribal, religious or socio-economic. So, in Kenya, the soccer players come from different tribes. In Côte d’Ivoire, they are Muslims and Christians. In Indonesia, the action takes place inside a prison, and the players are from rival ethnic gangs. In Morocco, programs focus on bridging gaps between rich and poor. In the DRC, "The Team" is 100% women, and the central issue is preventing sexual violence. Informally, we call our innovation "Soap Opera for Social Change," and academics describe the genre as “Behaviour Change Communication.” (To see a two-minute trailer of "The Team" worldwide, please click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipEo6b7xlIk.
Independent evaluation show that a significant part of our viewing and listening audience - typically about 10% to 20% - experience attitudinal changes toward people of other ethnicities, religions and classes. Audience members tend to become more understanding and tolerant of differences - and less inclined to be in conflict.
The Innovation
Our innovation addresses the pressing need to counter violent extremism by developing a new and better way to peacefully defuse and resolve ethnic, national, religious and socio-economic conflict. Current problems are simply too complex and interconnected to be settled on an adversarial basis. The earth is running out of space, resources and recuperative capacity to deal with wasteful conflict. In short, we at Search for Common Ground are working to promote a mass shift in consciousness in order to prevent intolerance and encourage social inclusion.
For three decades, we have produced television, radio and internet programming to catalyze social change - including, since 2006, "The Team." This is the innovation that we are featuring here. Our basic premise is that well-crafted, entertaining media programs can have a profound impact on how people think about themselves, their neighbors and their society. We use popular culture and compelling storytelling to reach huge numbers of people with positive messges. In every country where we work, we seek to create an environment that supports tolerance and coexistence. We have demonstrated that TV and radio drama – by evoking strong emotions and through repetition – can attract audiences that total in the tens of millions. Independent evaluations of our TV series show that our programs cause change in several ways. The characters and their struggles resonate deeply with viewers and listeners, reaching them on both the emotional and cognitive levels. When people are exposed to positive role models, stereotypes tend to be debunked. As a direct result, a substantial percentage of viewers and listeners undergo an empathetic, consciousness-shifting experience.
Implemented in
Kenya, Angola, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
Get in touch
John Marks
jmarks@sfcg.org
About Search for Common Ground
Search for Common Ground is an international non-governmental organization that works to end violent conflict and build healthy, safe, and just societies. It is the largest such organization dedicated to peacebuilding, with offices in over 30 countries and a media reach of roughly 40 million people.
Since its founding in 1982, Search for Common Ground has helped to avert genocide in Burundi, supported post-civil war elections in Liberia and Sierra Leone, shaped gender norms in Nepal with a TV show reaching 25 percent of the population, and mainstreamed sexual assault training for soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2018, Search was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
