Miriam Rasmussen and Professor Julia Ashworth, Theatre and Media Arts
Through many studies and programs it has been discovered that a lack of self-worth is one of the main contributing factors to poor morale and work ethic in Romania. It has been found, that, for the majority of the country, poor expectations have led to poor performance in the workplace, hostile environments within communities and a mass migration to other countries within the European Union (Heintz 178). Under that same umbrella of lack of self-worth, there is also a special category of need found in Romanian children who have been placed in orphanages. While research has been done to recognize/identify the problem of low self-esteem in Romania, no real research is available concerning how to best re-build that self-esteem. This project was an exploration of the possible methods or techniques that could be used to help Romanian children build confidence, self-esteem and work together in groups.
Having lived in Romania and seen the need for children to be given an outlet for creativity, I returned to Romania to aid an orphan placement organization in running a summer camp for orphans, ages 3-13. For the week of July 8 through July 10, 2009, I spent three days in Bârlad, Romania working as a workshop facilitator; I worked with thirty-nine children directing three workshops a day, totaling nine workshops. The nine workshops were spread over the course of three main summer camp days and were used in a rotation system with two other workshops which were taught by the organization staff and volunteers. The orphans were divided up into three different age groups (ages 3-6, 7-9 and 10-13) and rotated through three workshops each day of the summer camp. The workshops were run in a Theatre in Education classroom at Brigham Young University before they were taken to Romania.
The theme of the summer camp was Curaj! (Courage!), and each workshop that I taught incorporated the applied theatre methods of Augusto Boal and Viola Spolin– in which students were taught to recognize forces that may be hindering their self-esteem and how to deal with those forces. The main focus of the workshops was for the children to create a 15 minutes self-devised theatre piece that was completely written, costumed and performed by the them. Each age group devised their own play and the plays were performed on the last day of the summer camp for the children’s foster parents and organization volunteers.
My main question in creating and facilitating the workshops was: Would applied theatre activities help abused/abandoned children to more fully participate in large groups and how would participation in a self-devised play affect them or help them?
Through running the workshops, I discovered that the children in each age group were more than happy to be given the chance to perform. While some of the students naturally participated more than others, it was interesting to see how the applied theatre activities helped the children to interact more with each other.
Due to the set up of the Romanian orphanage system, there were a few of the orphans who had lasting problems from being kept in poor conditions as babies and toddlers. For example, one boy that I worked with had institutional autism as a result of his time in an orphanage as a baby. His normal participation level was low, and his communication with other children was normally limited if not non-existent. On day one of the summer camp I led the children through an animal imagery activity in which they were instructed to think of an animal that they thought embodied courage (the theme of the camp). They then used their animals to help create a story. For this group their story in rehearsal was about a courageous lion that helped save his friends from ghosts in the woods. The one chosen to be the lion was the young boy with institutional autism, and he played a fantastic lion.
When I later asked the workers who cared for him if they thought that there had been any improvement they said that they had seen a great change in him. Normally, he did not speak and was particularly active in group situations. During his performance in the devised theatre piece, the boy was the star of the show, acting multiple parts of various different people and animals.
During this project progress was seen in children from all different spectrums: shy children were able to perform on stage without having to audition or memorize a script, more active children were able to participate through helping design and eventually write an outline for their performance, children who were more adept with their hands were able to design and create their own costumes.
Through helping the children through the workshops I discovered that even the youngest children were able to participate in the activities that were originally designed to help adults. The quietest children were given a chance to be seen. Through theatre games, students were able to find their voices.
As a result of the workshops that were done in Romania, the children were able to develop their confidence in themselves and in their ability to work in a group. In the future, the workshops that were developed will be used in future classrooms in America. Also, as a result of the workshops, the orphan placement organization is working to find more interactive ways to help the children cope with their unique situation in life.