WHENEVER a neighbourhood ’maco’ speaks, people listen.

This a probably the reason the Toco Foundation named one of its four animal characters ’Maco’, in an attempt to find additional and creative means to communicate with people in the advocacy programmes in HIV and AIDS among other things.

Yesterday the Foundation informed the media of the four new ’activists’, who would aid in the dissemination of information from the Foundation to the public on matters such as in-house parenting, environmental conservation, community tourism and radio programming.

In the release the Foundation named the four activists: Maco-the Howler Monkey: as the observer in the forest, Tuffi-the River Lobster: as the keeper of the river courses, Stella-the Leatherback Turtle: as the ocean messenger and Chipo-the Green Parrot: as the speaker and alarmist on any occasion.

The introduction of the four characters was done to find additional and creative means to communicate with people in advocacy programmes. The Foundation hopes that the four ’activists’ would contribute to cultural awareness through speech drama and art, as the use species identifiable to the public.