Project description: The Center for Girls in Niš was established in 1998 with the mission of improving the position of young women by providing a safe space for education, empowerment, and the exchange of experiences. The organization’s mission is to empower children, girls, and women through support, education, activism, and the arts. The Center has long used artistic and creative methods as tools for education and empowerment. Experience has shown that drama is more effective than traditional lectures in capturing participants’ attention and communicating emotions and ideas in memorable ways. At the same time, participation in drama-based activities has proven to strengthen self-confidence, help participants overcome fear and insecurity, and positively influence their everyday lives. Over the years, the organization has used a wide range of drama techniques, including educational forum theatre, lecture performances, and street performances. The need for work-based training emerged after the Center decided to introduce drama-based activities for children attending its Day Centre for Children in street situations. Working with this group requires methods, techniques, and tools specifically adapted to participants’ educational backgrounds, age, life experiences, and ways of understanding the world. To strengthen its expertise in this area, the Center engaged professional actress Olivera Viktorović Đurašković to provide on-the-job training for its team.
Through the work-based training programme, five Center activists acquired practical knowledge of innovative drama methods and learned how to facilitate drama workshops with children aimed at collaboratively creating a theatre performance. The training introduced a range of acting and drama techniques designed to help children feel safe, relaxed, and actively involved in the creative process. These included body and voice imitation, role-playing, impulse-passing exercises, and a variety of theatre-based games adapted for children.
In the short term, the project resulted in the creation of the Center’s theatre performance developed with children from the Day Centre. In the long term, it strengthened the organization’s internal capacities to continue using drama as a tool for education, empowerment, and psychosocial support for children and other beneficiaries of both the Center for Girls and the Day Centre for Children.
Grant amount: 350,000.00 RSD
