wfn.org | Theater for traumatized kids fills need in Iraq

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Feb. 10, 2004	News media contact: Linda Bloom7(646) 369-37597New
York7E-mail:  newsdesk@umcom.org ALL-I-RM-YE {050}

NOTE: A map, Web-only photos and two related stories, UMNS #048 and #049, are
available with this report at umns.umc.org.

By Chris Herlinger*

BAGHDAD, Iraq (UMNS) - No one can accuse theater director Fadhil Abbas of
lacking  enthusiasm.

Rushing off to support his small theater troupe in its next performance,
Abbas is eager to see the reaction of the audience - in this case, dozens of
students attending the Hibako Allah Center, a Baghdad school for youngsters
with Down's syndrome.

If past performances are any indication, the reaction to today's play - "The
Neighborhood's Tree," a fable about children saving a tree from being cut
down - will prove a hit.

It is.

The children, many of them between the ages of 8 and 13, laugh and applaud
this tale, redolent of so much that has happened in Iraq during their young
lives. One of the play's themes explores the difference in Arabic between the
word for love, pronounced "hub," and the word for war, pronounced "hurb."

"Love," another play performed elsewhere by the troupe, is a morality tale
exploring the relationship between two feuding cats that eventually opt to
resolve their differences peacefully.

To the students, plots are probably less important than the mere presence of
actors like Sadoun Al-Jebory, whose enthusiasm and exuberance are contagious.

"You can touch and feel their happiness," Abbas said of the students. 

Sahira Abdul Latif, the school's founder, said the actors' presence caused a
spark in some students she had not seen before.

Happiness, of course, has been hard-won for Iraqi children, which is why
performances like these are signs of hope, she said.

They are also a sign of international solidarity. These and other
performances by Abbas' troupe are being funded with a $20,800 grant from the
All Our Children campaign, an inter-agency effort of U.S. churches, including
the United Methodists, and ecumenical agencies. Church World Service is the
coordinating agency. 

Funding from the grant is enabling the troupe to mount 30 performances in and
around Baghdad, providing a sense of emotional health for children who have
already lost a part of their childhoods amid war, looting and insecurity -
and particularly those who, like the students at the Hibako Allah Center,
already face severe disadvantages.

To Abbas, the need to create theater for traumatized children filled a needed
void in a post-war Iraq still experiencing violence and insecurity. "No one
was thinking about the children," he recalled. That prompted him to organize
fellow actors into the troupe.	

Nothing, he believes, could be more important or beneficial at the moment in
Iraq than making children happy.

Why? "Because they are our future."
# # #
*Herlinger, a journalist and staff member of Church World Service, visited
Iraq in January.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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