Lina

 In the past few years, we have developed a series of stories and characters based around a woman, Lina, who has come to the UK from Syria to begin a new life with her and her family.  We developed Lina through a series of participatory workshops in one of our first projects and have since performed Lina’s Story in a number of venues around London, such as the Migration Museum, Ealing Quaker’s and as part of the Shubbak Festival.  The performances involve a high level of audience interaction, in a process known as ‘Forum Theatre’, inviting the audience to ‘step into’ the action of the story and help Lina find alternative ways of solving the challenges she is facing as a newly-arrived refugee.  This enables both the participants to get the support they need from the wider community as well as broadening awareness for the general population about the macro issues that refugees struggle with.  

Lina Performance January 2019

Children’s Creative Education project

We use the characters and stories developed in our adult workshops to also build interactive workshops for children on themes of belonging, bullying, growing up, love and relationships.  A recent project with Alperton School in London focused on the trials and tribulations of Nour and her relationship with her mother Lina as she attempts to navigate what it means to grow up in the UK with the expectations of our Syrian mother.  The workshop was well received by the children in helping them to deal with the culture and generational gaps of growing up amongst different cultures.