ARROW UK & Ireland Congress 2009 and International Symposium

Overview

In June/July 2009 a UK & Ireland ARROW Congress was held at University College Plymouth St Mark & St John (UCP Marjon). This event drew together young people from across the UK and Ireland, and artists, educators, practitioners and academics from around the world. It was an ambitious occasion that included a week long collection of workshops and activities delivered by young people for young people and a three day international symposium for academics and practitioners to discuss and debate the role of the arts in peace building.

The Congress provided an opportunity for young people to come together, from a variety of youth groups in the UK and Ireland, to share practice, talk about the challenges faced in their own areas and contexts, learn from one another and meet and have fun together. Young people from diverse backgrounds showed how the arts and drama were being used as a medium for personal and social development, to build bridges, educate and raise awareness, highlight positive messages and contribute to transforming conflicts.

The symposium provided a platform for practitioners and academics to share experiences of working in diverse global contexts, to strengthen the fusion between theory and practice, develop collaborative partnerships and networks and debate the role of drama and the arts as a tool for conflict transformation and social change. Symposium delegates included participants from a number of regions including South Africa, Palestine, India, USA, Netherlands, Serbia, Brazil and Ireland.

The driving force behind the Congress was the ARROW programme (Art: a Resource for Reconciliation Over the World). ARROW is the response of drama and other arts educators at UCP Marjon in Plymouth, to events such as 9/11, the war in Iraq and increased racial and cultural tensions in towns and cities across the UK. It addresses the questions ‘what can I/we do?’ ‘How can the arts help create a more peaceful world?’ The programme set out to develop a global network of artists, educators, young people, organisations and institutions with a commitment to building bridges across perceived boundaries and barriers, sharing stories, challenging prejudice and stereotypes, developing the arts as a resource for reconciliation and the creative transformation of conflict.

The ARROW Congress was attended by five youth groups from the UK and Ireland: Burnley, Slough, Derry, Durham and Plymouth. The Congress took a peer led approach with young people running workshops for one another. The young people formed an extremely diverse group in terms of gender, age, culture, ethnicity, heritage, ability, disability and religious background. In addition, a wide range of experiences were present due to participants coming from very different communities which had very different histories. It was this richness of experiences that paved the way for a unique week of sharing experiences and learning from one another, offering ways to use drama and the arts to tackle difficult issues and problems in their own communities. All groups were engaged in various ways to promote peace building, break down barriers, raise awareness of specific issues, and engage in personal and social development in their areas.

Burnley’s ‘Breaking Barriers’ (BBB) youth group was formed following ‘race’ riots in Burnley in 2002. BBB aims to bring together young people from different areas, backgrounds and cultures, to develop positive relationships between the various communities of Burnley. The Burnley group gave a performance that incorporated break dance and street dance. Dance is used by BBB as a medium to work with young people to break down barriers between communities and groups.

Slough’s ‘Aik Saath’ youth group was established in response to gang violence between young people from Asian backgrounds in Slough. The group work with people from all communities, faiths and backgrounds to encourage peace, racial harmony and community cohesion through the teaching of conflict resolution and anti-racism skills. Congress workshops included drama games that highlighted the effects of group competition, conflict and unfair behaviour, and a dialogical task that showed the difficulties with negotiation when not everyone agrees with others’ opinions.

Derry’s ‘First Act’ youth group produced a number of stimulating and thought provoking activities and a drama performance. ‘The hands across the divide’ showed the difficult context of conflict that young people face in their daily lives in Northern Ireland. The group also offered insight into the concepts of discrimination and stereotyping through workshop tasks that pointed out how people discriminate against others and how bad this makes people feel.

Durham’s ‘Jackass’ youth theatre group described and performed part of a theatre project that they had been engaged with. This production highlighted Durham’s part in encouraging slavery and eventually the part played in the abolition of slavery. The group showed real slave trade artefacts that had been acquired for the play and engaged participants in creating further drama pieces using these instruments.

Plymouth’s ‘Voices for Change’ youth group were joined by the symposium delegates who participated in a ‘verbatim theatre’ workshop run by the young people. The youth group ran a workshop that highlighted a project they had been engaged with regarding asylum seekers and refugees in Plymouth. Real words taken from interviews were used to create pieces of drama as a combined effort amongst young people and adults.

Plymouth’s ‘Action for Change’ young people’s group were formed by young people who had taken part in a powerful training programme called ‘undoing racism’. This had been delivered by the ‘Peoples institute for survival’ from New Orleans, formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the USA. The youth group used racist incidents that had happened and invited participants to discuss and explore ways people might question, challenge and change things if they were involved in similar real life scenarios.

The ARROW symposium provided a platform for a variety of discussions, such as debating the role and theoretical underpinnings of the term ‘citizen artist’ and exploring creative ways to work with young people to bring about conflict transformation. In addition, delegates shared narratives about professional histories and considered potential areas for collaboration between practitioners and academics around the world, such as global exchange teaching and student work placements.

Experiences of global practice were shared. In recent years arts projects have become an important part of community development strategies, being used as a tool for bringing people together to explore issues, resolve problems and develop communities. The arts can have a profound impact on people’s emotions, allowing them to get in touch with their deeper feelings about issues that affect their lives, such as identity, poverty, domestic violence, racism, gender issues and so on. Working through emotions and feelings can help people to think more critically about their experiences and those of others and thereby develop new ways to understand the world. In addition, the arts serve to release creativity in people, developing new ways to visualise the world and find new solutions to resolve problems.

Group leaders and facilitators explained the success of working with the arts in diverse contexts. It was shown that many young people in Palestine feel burdened with responsibility to fight the occupation. They need space to ‘play’ and be children. Theatre in Palestine is proving to be a powerful medium for conflict transformation, helping young people deal with internal conflict through giving them a way to express themselves. Another facilitator shared experiences of a project working with young women, from India, who interviewed their mothers about their marriages. Parents came to a performance by their daughters who retold their mothers’ stories. The focus was on developing understanding. Critical dialogue was an important part of the work. The process was described as being very rich for mothers to see their lives retold by their daughters and the subsequent understandings that emerged. Facilitators talked about the richness of hearing people’s stories and how Congress workshops had given ideas that could be taken back to their own contexts for working with young people.

It is emerging that what sets ARROW apart from other related programmes is its mixture of academics, practitioners and young people. The ARROW programme sits within an academic framework that supports practice and practice feeds back into theory. The blend of academics, practitioners and young people serve to remove hierarchical barriers through the engagement of all in democratic processes and dialogue through the use of the arts. The ARROW programme aims to build on the success of the UK & Ireland Congress experience. In 2010 young people, organisers, facilitators and academics will be invited from a number of regions and countries around the world to participate in an ambitious Global Congress event. This will provide an excellent resource, including a wealth of diverse and highly skilled international practitioners and academics and a rich gathering of young people with a variety of experiences from around the world. The ARROW Congress provides testament to the effective role of arts and drama as a dynamic tool for promoting social change and conflict transformation across the world.

Heather Knight 2009