New project seeks to humanise the challenges facing asylum seekers
Theatre director and Culture Spark creative co-ordinator Caroline Sharman-Mendoza has turned playwright with an important new piece which seeks to humanise the challenges facing asylum seekers.
Caroline, who lives just outside Chichester, took the play as a workshop into four primary schools and was delighted with the response.
Caroline, who lives just outside Chichester, took the play as a workshop into four primary schools and was delighted with the response.
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00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely
00:05 to be speaking again to Caroline Sharman-Mendoza, this time about the fact that you have become
00:11 for the first time a playwright with a really interesting play, which you've taken into
00:15 a number of schools just recently and clearly is going to develop for the future. But what's
00:21 the starting point? It's called 'Belongings'. There's a lot encompassed in that word, isn't
00:26 it? 'Belongings', what context? Yes, 'Belongings' because it's about the story of asylum seekers,
00:32 young asylum seekers, a lot of them who've travelled on their own, and it's belonging
00:38 to a country and what belongings you take. That was the kind of play on the word for
00:42 the title. I've been doing a lot of work with the Sanctuary at Chichester, a fantastic organisation,
00:49 and I've met quite a few of these asylum seekers and I thought it would be really good to be
00:53 able to tell their stories. I've obviously anonymised them because they need to be kept
00:59 anonymous for all sorts of safety reasons, but they've been very kind enough to tell
01:04 me their stories. And so I've, with three professional actors and a movement director,
01:10 we kind of cobbled them together into a play and took them into four primary schools last
01:16 week. And that was the first time putting it in front of people then, was it, presumably?
01:22 Absolutely. How did that go? Well, it was really well, really well. And
01:28 we had some lovely comments, you know, you could hear a pin drop, which is basically
01:31 what you want, you know, they're really, really listening. We put on a workshop beforehand
01:36 so that they could be engaged where they learnt a song, they learnt some movements, and so
01:42 they could, when we did various moments in the play, they could go 'aha'. And they learnt
01:49 how to greet, so they learnt 'Salaam' and 'Slav' and 'Dobrodošli', various words to
01:55 how you say hello and welcome. So they would welcome us. So it was lovely.
01:59 What was the whole thing saying, would you say? What was it all about?
02:03 It was about humanising and enabling these young people to understand why they're making
02:10 these journeys. They're not necessarily choosing to leave their families and their journeys,
02:14 they're just finding a safe place where they can carry on. And I just felt it was really
02:19 important that people understand that. They're rather seen as numbers. And for me, it's really
02:26 important that they are individuals and they've each have very different journeys.
02:31 So with the visit to the schools, it sounds like things have gone off to an excellent
02:34 start. What ideally is going to happen next with the whole project?
02:39 Well I'm hoping this time next year, I've got to get a bit more funding because the
02:44 Sussex Community Foundation thankfully supported us. And it's through my company, Article 12
02:51 Arts, that I run with Kate Viner, who, if I could just give her a little plug, has a
02:56 wonderful exhibition at the Cathedral at the moment. So what I would hope is this time
03:03 next year, I could, perhaps as part of Festival of Chichester, take it round.
03:08 Definitely do.
03:09 Yes, please. Take it round to another selection of primary schools, because the feedback was
03:15 really good. And I think it's very important. The story sadly will continue. So I think
03:20 it's important that more and more people get to hear. And a play is such a good vehicle
03:25 for getting really some quite tricky stories across.
03:28 It sounds terrific. Good luck with that, Caroline. Lovely to speak to you again. Thank you.
03:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]