Promoting safety awareness in fishing communities through community arts: An action research project

Commercial fishing is a very dangerous industry. Traditionally safety education has focused on making individual fish harvesters aware of safety regulations and procedures. An alternative approach is to raise community awareness of safety issues and to consider both individual and collective strategies for improving safety in the industry. Such an approach would be based upon the local fishing communities’ cultural traditions. This paper presents details of the use of drama, music and associated arts-based activities designed to promote safety awareness in three fishing communities in Newfoundland. Local residents planned and performed all of the activities. Discussions were subsequently conducted with key community participants to clarify the process of implementing these projects. These participants were very enthusiastic about the projects and keen to develop other similar activities in their communities. It would seem that community arts is a very effective means of engaging communities in discussion about safety related issues.