In Refugee Week, June 2007, WAR was a co-sponsor of Women in Dialogue’s pathbreaking Project Put Yourself in Our Shoes. There were two innovative strands to this project: taking women asylum seekers who fled violence to speak to children in schools, and holding theatre workshops for children run by internationally renowned playwright Kay Adshead.
Women from Uganda and Congo opened the workshop for girls aged 14-15 at Parliament Hill School, describing how they escaped war. Hearing their accounts, several girls were moved to share their own traumatic experiences of violence at home and at school. Some “came out” as children of refugee and asylum-seeking families, having previously feared a hostile reaction from their classmates. Women seeking asylum have said how moved and encouraged they were to receive such warm and empathetic responses from children.
Playwright Kay Adshead then led a theatre workshop, using Augusto Boal’s “Forum Theatre” technique to draw out the girls’ experiences of seeking safety from bullying and violence. They devised and later performed a play at the Tricycle Theatre.
The project culminated in a thought-provoking public show, “A Night out of the Asylum”, on 24 June at the Tricycle Theatre in North West London. Children aged 8-9 from Kingsgate School performed The Bookerooka. A friendly alien lands in a local community and is treated as an outcast until one girl makes everyone realise how much more fun life is with the Bookerooka.
A full house at the Tricycle included immigrant parents from the school, many of whom said they had never been to their local theatre before.
