In May 2018, as part of the activities of the project YOU ARE WELCOME: European Network for Integration of Refugees at Local Level and Combating Hate Speech, Center for Intercultural Dialogue has held 1 preparatory workshop with the local participants in the youth center MultiКулти and a 2-day workshop with the refugees and local participants in the transit center Tabanovce. The project is supported by the European Commission through the Europe for Citizens programme.
The workshops were attended by 22 individual participants in total for all 3 days, and together with the facilitator, they explored the methods of non-formal education, Augusto Boal’s techniques of Theater of the Oppressed (mainly Image Theater) and Moreno’s sociodrama. With joint efforts, they managed to create 3 small performances on the topics of War, Belonging and Conflict that were performed in front of the other participants and some of the staff from the transit center.
Regardless of the linguistic barriers that some have encountered, with common endeavours, the participants bonded during the activities and free time for socialising, sharing their stories and mutual interests. Finally, the workshops were finished with a small wrap up activity of creating a physical net that metaphorically fused the participants by joining their hands with a mutual jute that they kept as a bracelet after the end of the workshop. As a final conclusion of the workshop and these days spent together, the conclusion was evident – You don’t need to know a persons’ language to understand how they feel, and we all deserve to enjoy the same human rights. After all, that’s what makes us human.
