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True or False….

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True or False?….Gaza is the most crowded place anywhere in the world? TRUE…There are 3577 people living in each square Kilometre.

 An interesting and distressing fact, but its difficult to imagine what this might mean for the people of Gaza…

“You three, stand behind that table, the rest of you enjoy the room. Use the space as you wish. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Get BACK behind that table. You are NOT allowed out.”

How did it make you feel to be trapped in this small space?

“sad,

confused,

angry”

 

True or False?…Since 1948, 71,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to move from their homes.

TRUE…The Israeli Defence Force regularly destroy buildings. They claim this is a deterrent against terrorism. House demolitions are also carried out when buildings do not comply with Israeli set building regulations.

“Every one put your desks back. Adam, not you. You can’t have a desk there any longer. No you can’t sit with Hackmat. I don’t care where you go. NO. NOT THERE…”

How did it make you feel to not have somewhere to sit?

“Confused, discombobulated”

 

At the moment our group at College Park feel as if they are a very long way away from the young people in Gaza. The situation there is a very difficult concept to grasp, especially for a group of London school children.  Creating experiences through drama about the issues that young people may face in Gaza, may have made the situation easier to comprehend. Perhaps the group at College Park felt like they had slipped one toe into a shoe belonging to someone in Gaza?

At the end of the session we discussed the future of the project with the group. “In December what would you like to have learnt to do with your hands, what knowledge would you like to have in your heads and how would you like to feel in your hearts?” Resolutely, the answer was…“We want to hear from the young people in Gaza”

Head, Heart, Hands – a reflection

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This week we reflected on the previous four sessions to explore what we had learnt to do with our hands, knowledge we now had in our heads and how this made us feel in our hearts.

The group used words such as: confident, sorrow, happy, strong, sad, rich, poor, freedom, excited, camera, can’t leave, feel, stories, sharing, helping, filming, acting, looking, movement.

It was clear from this reflection that the group have begun to think about the parallels that there are between young people in Gaza and young people in London, suggesting that they are beginning to take ownership in the project.

Next week we will explore what they would like to have learnt to do with their hands, what knowledge they would like to have in their heads and how they would like to feel in their hearts at the end of the second half of term.

Who and Why? – Time for reflection

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After a very high energy session this week we decided that it was time to focus the groups attention back on Gaza, exchange and friendship. We, as outsiders and facilitators have successfully built a relationship of trust with the group. So it is time to ask ourselves and the group…What is the purpose of these sessions, and what do we want to achieve from our relationship with each other and the young people in Gaza?

During our next workshop we shall reflect on our achievements to date and question where we go from hear….

Who are the young people in Gaza?

What are their lives like?

How can we show them who we are?

Why do we want to do this?

An exploration of space through a narrative performance

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The third workshop at College Park saw the group taking full ownership of the project. During their morning drama class the group had developed a drama piece focused on a central character, ‘Mr Lazy’, a new caretaker at College park who is constantly falling asleep in strange places around the school. During the afternoon workshop they performed this piece under the direction of a camera woman and an actor/come director. Collectively they explored possible camera angles and mastered the challenging concept of multiple takes so that a visually stimulating film could be cut together.

On a simple level this was a narrative based exploration of the schools facilities, which through the use of film allowed the group to view places from different perspectives; on a more complex level it was a portrayal of what is and what is not expectable in a school environment, and aportrayal of what we consider to be socially expectable.

We wait in anticipation for the second instalment of the saga to see why Mr Lazy just can not keep his eyes open…

Click on this link to see the film Mr Meshnoum.

 

Mr Meshnoum