Farha Taysha

Raising Awareness of the Dangers of Stray Bullets

A street theatre performance countering the normalisation of gunfire received national attention after its video went viral.

‘Farha Taysha’ translates roughly to ‘Stray Bullets Kill Joy’. It was an online and offline project tackling the dangers of celebratory gunfire in Lebanon. In 2017, at least 90 people were killed as a result of stray bullets being fired at weddings and other events. Two of the members of the project team had themselves lost loved ones because of it.

The team acted out a scene on the streets of Tripoli, involving the death of a guest at a wedding because of a gun fired in celebration. The crowd that gathered to watch the performances received leaflets to engage directly with the community, and the performance itself was filmed and released on Facebook, and became the centrepiece of an online advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the issue.