It is nice to think that there are still places, situations and communities where theatre still has that popular, social, inspirational and thought-provoking function that it had in Europe in the last century, as well as giving us great playwrights and actors.

This is happening in one of the poorest and most degraded neighbourhoods of Nairobi, the Korogocho slum, and the initiative, as is often the case fortunately, was supported by Italy, but it could not have taken place in the form in which we witnessed it, without the performance of the 'Social Justice Travelling Theatre', a group of 18 young people who staged a three-act play on violence against women for more than 200 pupils at the 'Comboni' primary school in Korogocho, taking life in the suburbs of the Kenyan capital and the country's problems in general as their starting point.

Using the well-established weapon of the brilliant comedy, which first makes people laugh and then invites reflection, the actors captured the attention of the children (and also of the adults present in the school's auditorium, including teachers and professionals) and drew applause.

But what mattered was the message, and that message came through: no more gender violence in Kenya, where girls get pregnant at the age of twelve in exchange for sanitary napkins or a few pennies to take to their mothers who do not have the essentials for the family, sometimes because her husband, with the money he earns, drinks with his friends and leaves her only the essentials to eat.

Themes that take us Italians back to the immediate post-war period, as recounted in 'C'è ancora domani' by Paola Cortellesi, the film of the moment in Italy that fits in well with the 16-day activism against gender violence organised by the Italian Development Cooperation, with the Italian Institute of Culture in Nairobi and the Italian Embassy in Kenya. A film that, not by chance, was screened in the (packed) city hall of the 'Unseen' club in Kilimani, with free admission on the same evening as the Korogocho play.

Two sides of the same coin, between those who have to earn their fortune with hard work and beastly willpower, and those who have to remind themselves every day that they have enough to devote to those in need, not with mere welfarism, but with intelligent 'sparks' like theatre can be.