Port-au-Prince, July 5, 2016 --- Daphné Fertil, 19, is an eleven grade student in a public school in Port-au-Prince.

After attending the theater forum focused on investing in adolescents girls, theme of the World Population Day, she replaces one of the actors, to try to change the course of the story, under the applause of the audience.

We are at the Gymnasium of ¨Centre Sportif de Carrefour¨, south of Port-au-Prince, July 4, 2016.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, in concert with other United Nations agencies, UNV and MINUSTAH, chose this tool to give teens and young people a way to express themselves.

Daphné, who has been playing theater in her church for almost 3 years, is happy to show, alongside professional actors, her talents to the public.

¨I am happy with my performance. Since, in the theater story, the school Director understood me and wanted to meet the students committee.

Daphné finally got the attention of a haughty Director who, in one of the sequences, expells for insubordination a teenager who suggested him some initiatives to improve the physical environment of the school and to facilitate the development of the students.

Three days earlier, on July 1, the group ¨Les Rescapés¨ interacted with other teenagers and young people, as part of a similar theater story held at Jacmel, southeast of Haiti, under the umbrella of UNFPA and its partners.

Guerdine Fleurantin, 16, is a seven grade student. After attending the theater forum in Jacmel, she commented on the tragic end of the representation.

¨Parents and children should be friends who can speak with confidence¨, she believes.

After being expelled from the school and scolded by her father, Stephane, 16 years, seeking a moral support, was abused (in one of the sequences) by an adult, a friend of the family. Fearing the reaction of her father, she kept the secret and died after she took pills against-indicated, following the advice of a friend.

By replacing throughout the sequences the actors to change the course of the story, adolescents and young people are aware that they can be, in real life, actors of change, rather than spectators.

The commemoration of World Population Day will culminate, on July 11, with an advocacy day to be attended by the leadership of the UN system and several Government officials.