What began as an experimental forum theatre in February has now become a civic innovation tool in Nigeria through Street Project Foundation. As one of our methods, we do not hold firm to only one mode of awakening social consciousness and transformation, and so, we did a new thing in partnership with Demo.Reset by Extituto from Colombia. Street Project Foundation (SPF) has successfully had two editions of its Youth Legislative Theatre Lab, and the impact has been revolutionary. We have started a new transformation in Lagos, combining our love for creative expression with policy action in ways that are already shaping local governance. This time, we did not focus only on people with creative skills; we looked for people with an interest in changing the status quo of our political space.
“It was a defining moment,” said Cara, one of the participants, “because now I see the possibilities; practical ways to organize and use theatre as a tool to engage our leaders.”

Through role play, improvisation, storytelling and play, we discussed issues such as unemployment, political thuggery, and social inequality in the first edition. In the second edition, we strengthened youth leaders’ capacity for persuasive communication, movement building, and entrepreneurship. The youths of Kosofe didn’t just rehearse for change; they began making it. Their ideas, once shared on stage during performance, are now being considered by the leaders within their community, and their requests are being discussed for implementation.
In a country where youth voices are often sidelined, this theatre laboratory has created a safe, creative arena where imagination meets legislation. Participants learnt to decode nonverbal cues, discuss new ideas or propose innovations logically and with empathy, engage in advocacy with intention, and develop business ideas that solve problems in their current realities. SPF used theatre as a civic accelerator.
Trois reflected on this shift, sharing how the lab has made him “more attentive to his community’s silent cries,” and now he seeks to develop constituency-based solutions through his art.
By uniting a global practice with our local energy, we are not only reimagining civic participation; we are setting a new precedent for what youth engagement looks like in Nigeria. And if the energy in Kosofe is anything to go by, this isn’t just a performance—it’s a policy reset, and we are taking the lead role.