I would like to talk about an experience which has lasted for ten years now, and significantly influenced our overall activities. It concerns the experience due to which we had been laughed at for years, named dilettantes who do a lot of harm to theatrical art, etc. As a matter of course, all these critics came from our own country, from people who should have been supporting us, at least from the aspect of their education and theatrical experience.
But they were not with us.
To make you understand better what I am talking about, let me say a few words about the beginning of this story. Actually, in December 1996 I was invited by the Croatian Centre for Drama Education to a consultative conference that they organized, to talk about my experience in working with young people during the war. I accepted their invitation and suggested to play a performance named «Pax Bosnensis», which illustrated in the best possible way how we used to work and live during that period.
I did not expect that my suggestion would be accepted, because war tensions were still very strong. But I proved to be wrong. An official invitation was made and we set off to Zagreb. I had a speech and we played three performances as well. It was a valuable experience which changed all the young people who were there in Zagreb, the experience that freed them from prejudice. Some refused to join us, though.
There, in Zagreb, we met an Englishman, Roger Chamberlain, who proposed us to cooperate and initiate a big project.
To be honest, I did not understand a thing of what he said, but I believed that he was one of those who talked a lot with no results.
Again, I was wrong.
Roger came to Mostar and initiated a three-year project named „Pax project“ under sponsorship of CARE International.
In the end of the project, an independent evaluator Geoff Gilham from GB wrote about the reasons they started the project:
«War in ex Yugoslavia, whose centre was B&H, left the country in ruins. It was a war in which 90% of the victims were civilians. Over a half of pre-war inhabitants of B&H were expelled from their homes in genocide exiles. Almost 2 million of people became so called „internally displaced persons“ or refugees in other countries. One can hardly imagine all the suffering that people in B&H endured. Furthermore, the war destroyed the infrastructure, economy, industrial capacities and rich cultural heritage of the country. Even after the war, the nationalistic politicians took a lot of advantage of the heritage of fear and war animosity, which made the post war situation extremely difficult, if not even dangerous, to establish peace and reconstruction of the society for people in B&H who wanted to contribute to reconciliation, as well as for foreign NGO's which came to B&H to participate in that process.
Under given circumstances, the PAX project was born in August 1997, as the main component of the CARE program for civil society development.
I am not going to talk any more about the Pax project, but I need to mention that at one of the workshops within the project (in regard to myth about Pandora and Prometheus), an interesting program of educational theatre which addresses violence was developed. We further developed this idea and this program within the MTM-Mostar in many varieties, leading the process with many citizens of B&H of all ages and profiles, and in many countries in the world. Our focuses changed during years of our work. In the beginning, our focus was on rape as a war strategy. Then we focused on violence as mythological phenomenon of the region of Balkan, life under disguise, hypocrisy, domestic violence, and, finally, violence against youth.
Why this violence in the end?
Ten years of existence of the CDO in B&H, and a continuous realization of a series of projects throughout B&H and wider, provided us with valuable information regarding the needs of children and young people in our country. As a matter of course, for creating a complete picture we used all available indicators from relevant state institutions, as well as from local and international NGO's. Having no intention to elaborate herewith the root causes, we have concluded that the trend of violent behavior among young people aged 11 to 15, has been increasing significantly, and that such behavior is very present in schools and their environment.
The data regarding use of knives in children¨s fights, broken legs, beating to unconsciousness, as well as various forms of tormenting an individual by groups, have induced us to create such a project. Furthermore, an apparent presence of various vice already in elementary schools, a destructive behavior of a great number of boys and girls, point to an alarming situation which should not remain ignored.
We have also concluded that the educational component of family has decreased; consequently parents expect school to take this responsibility, as well. As a result of this, we have lots of neglected children who seek for their idols on the street. In Mostar this situation has been additionally worsened by a still existing „apartheid“ in educational system, resulting in, among other things, overpopulated school buildings, where beside an elementary school for which the building was specially constructed, there also exist two high schools. All this reduced the role of schools to a mere teaching process. All this, including a catastrophic economic situation in the town, as well as the still existing dividedness, resulted in apathy of the population, leaving the children to their own devices. In this atmosphere of neglect and lack of educational role of family and under the influence of numerous negative idols to which we have been exposed, our children become violent and often out of control.
Therefore, we are convinced that the work with this population is a priority, because this degree of violence among children might have far reaching negative consequences for the entire society of B&H in future.
The project points out the causes of numerous individual deviant behavior, thus acting preventivelly.
Discovering individual causes, we can define the common ones, having learned how to cope with them.
Having assessed the situation, we went to schools aiming to cover every class from 5th to 8th grade and to show the pupils our „bait“ that resulted from a workshop inspired by the myth of Prometheus and Pandora. It was the last version of the program „Masks“. The purpose of this project is to raise awareness of the violent behavior, to point at the root causes, to explore them and to indicate the consequences. We also want to involve parents, teachers and all school children in this project, not exclusively those with an extremely violent behavior. Thus, we focus on the causes of such violent behavior trying to prevent it, and not only to deal with the consequences. The aim of the project is to influence the change of behavior today and to raise awareness of each individual in regard to his/her own violent behavior, confronting him/her with its consequences.
The program „Masks“ was performed in every class in each school.This program approaches the problem of violence by the methodology of Theatre in education, involving all present pupils.
Thus, all their individual deviant behavior can be simply identified, the causes noticed and possible solutions reached through a play. After having analyzed all gathered indicators, the sessions with parents would be organized, instead of classic parents meetings; the „baits“ for these sessions would be the information we received from their children with an emphasis on the explored causes of their violent behavior and its possible consequences. Our experience taught us that this way of facing reality is catharsis and effective.
In the course of these activities we organized a series of workshops for teachers with an aim to enable them to apply the methodology of Drama and Theatre in education in their regular pedagogical work.
Fully aware of the fact that this problem is evident and that there are no fast and short term solutions, through the implementation of this project we expect to achieve the following results:
- more active dealing with problem by all interested parties,
- dealing with the causes (prevention) and not the consequences,
- enabling a significant number of teachers to apply a new methodology, which is appropriate for this mind of work, though still unknown in our environment.
We believe that the realization of this project in six elementary schools in Mostar promotes by its positive influence this method of work and contributes to its expansion in all schools; we also believe that the trained teachers can apply this methodology in their regular work. We are also convinced that the project can influence the change of deviant behavior of the children by showing their parents to numerous causes of such behavior, thus influencing the changes of parental behavior, as well. According to our previous experience, this should significantly influence the decrease of juvenile delinquency in our environment.
During the whole implementation period of the project (in preparation phase, in the classroom, during the analysis, and generally- everywhere, I always kept another experience in my mind. I recalled a situation that happened six years ago at the University of Virginia. I had a workshop with students of final year of acting. What gave a special „charm“ to that work was the fact that we were going to meet each other soon afterwords on a joint project on Crete/Greece. The students of acting of the University of Virginia together with their professors, artists from Greek theatres and the actors from Mostar Youth Theatre, were supposed to spend 15 days exploring possibilities of catarsa on myth of Minotaur. Therefore, my work with them was of a special importance. I was getting to know them more and more as the time passed, and I was getting ready for the next project which was about to begin ten days later. On the last day their main professor gave me the instructions that had been specifically prepared to teach American students how to behave when in Greece. I was asked to read it and give my comments and suggestions. And, immediately after having read the first lines, I was confused. The professor’s recommended to their students to apstinate from drugs and sex, or at least to minimize such practice and do it with discretion. The reason for all this was their trip to the „CULTURE OF SHAME“.
I neither added, nor asked anything. I brought a copy of the document to show to those students that I was supposed to take to Greece. It was a good joke to them. Why did I recall this event while I was in the classrooms of elementary schools of Mostar?
I understood what the professor David wrote in his instructions.
I understood what he meant by: the CULTURE OF SHAME“.
My main problem in various classrooms was how to motivate students not respond with simply YES or NO, but to „make“ them speak and give their opinion. For instance, in a village school near Mostar, we noticed that the girls and boys of the 8th grade were wearing modern clothes and make-up and were interested in watching the bait, which actually was a small piece of theatre; nevertheless, as soon as the situation changed and they were supposed to start talking, giving their opinion, dilemmas, attitude, there was a sudden turn and everything seemed different. The girls lowered their glance, concealing their mouths with their clothes. They apparently gave us the sign that the program came to its end, as far as they were concerned. They were not there to speak, but to sit down in silence and listen. That is still the tradition that persists in their environment even nowadays. And not only in their environment.
It was clear that the process should be directed in a different direction. Physical violence was no longer important, so we started to explore the position of women in that particular local community. And it was not at all an easy task. The most common excuse or statement was: I am a woman, and that is all there is to it. Nothing can be done to change it.
We extracted a couple of little family situations. They were hard and painful. We just slightly opened the problem. The boys kept laughing obviously not seeing any problem at all. We did not insist on this, fully aware of the fact that it required a lot of courage for three girls to start speaking; shyly, scarcely, yet speaking....
We left the school strongly determined to come back again, but also convinced that there are much more such communities in our environment.
Soon afterward we were invited by the director to visit all classes in that school and because the students asked for it.
There was an impressive example of a school in Mostar, where we implemented this program with groups of 30 pupils each. The teachers did not participate. In each of the six classes at least one of the five smaller groups repeated the same or nearly the same scene. In some of the classes even more than one group. It was an alarm to take an action. Using the method of asking questions in the roles, we found out that there was a teacher in that school who torments the pupils, which sometimes involves physical violence. The „hot chair“ revealed who it was. After this short visit to this school and a talk with the school director and pedagogue, this long kept secret was made public. The teacher in question was sanctioned and everything changed. The power of play in in its fictional context and thus acquired feeling of safety, gave young people a power to speak; once they spoke, the solution was found.
We also remember another interesting experience from a school in a village near Mostar. We went there burdened with a stereotype opinion about what was awaiting us there. We were surprised. The school building was small and in bad condition, but everything in the school was neat, well organized and friendly. We felt good. The children were open and willing to cooperate, very curious, too. We offered „Masks“ to them, too. In one of the 6th grades we felt a special joy in our work with the students aged 12. After first five minutes of the performance the actors put little white masks over their faces. I noticed a boy who immediately became nervous and started to ask his teachers questions. She tried to calm him down and direct his attention towards us. He hardly endured the first fifteen minutes. As soon as he got the opportunity, he quickly asked a question: Why the masks that the young actors were wearing did not have the mouth on their faces, while the masks that parents wore do have it?
If I only could, I would have kissed him out of joy. It was a question that we were asked for the first time ever since we started the project. We did the same in many countries throughout Europe, USA, etc., with the activists who deal with protection of human rights of children, with students,..., but until that moment there was no such question in any of 100 performances that we had done before. The child gave the answer, too. He clearly recognized the desperation of the society in which he lived, which prevents him from talking, but also the entire tragic tradition because of which he is not supposed to think or talk. It is known who has right to speak.
After this, they all started to speak, create, play and went home enriched with a new knowledge. We concluded that, in spite of all difficulties, we need to talk. If we talk, there will be a chance that someone would hear us. If someone hears us, there is a chance that something will change. We have quotation with the words said by students of a school. We remembered it and repeated it whenever and wherever we had the opportunity to do so.
Finally, I am convinced that young people whom we met will speak and truly change their micro world.
For this reason we rush to visit as many micro worlds as possible in our town, our country and elsewhere.