Developing Empathy through Theater
This project also has a Project where you can read more about its latest progress.
Go to Project: Developing Empathy through Theater.
The Kumari Project's program teaches empathy by using theater to help kids understand others' perspectives and become effective, collaborative leaders.
Sobre ti
Sobre ti
Nombre
Arun
Apellido
Storrs
URL en Twitter
https://twitter.com/#!/kumariproject
Sobre tu organización
Nombre de la organización
The Kumari Project
Sitio web de la organización
País de la organización
Estados Unidos, OR, Eugene, Lane County
Países en donde este proyecto está creando impacto social
Nepal, XX, Kathmandu and surrounding cities
Tu organización es
Sin fines de lucro
Tu rol en la Educación
Otro.
Tipo de escuela(s) afiliada(s) con tu solución:
Privada (con pago de matrícula)
¿Cuánto tiempo ha estado operando la organización?
1-5 años
La información que brindes aquí será usada para llenar las partes de tu perfil que hayan sido dejadas en blanco, como intereses, organización, y sitio web. Ninguna información de contacto será hecha pública. Por favor desmarca esta casilla si no deseas que esto suceda..
Innovación
Selecciona la fase que describa mejor el momento en el que se encuentra tu emprendimiento
Idea (estás listo para lanzarla)
¿Hace cuánto que viene operando tu organización?
Sigue en fase conceptual, pero se espera que se lance pronto.
La necesidad: ¿Cuál es el problema que tratas de solucionar?
Recent political unrest has caused the number of orphans to spike in the Kathmandu Valley. Adoptions have been halted for years due to growing coercion, trafficking, and corruption of orphans. The number of orphans is increasing as resources are dwindling. Girls are especially vulnerable. Orphanages are mis-managed and under-funded. Often girls and boys at orphanages report being discriminated against in class for being poor or from a certain caste, blamed for stealing things just because they are poor, picked on by teachers for unpaid tuition, and being told they are inferior because they do not have what is considered a ‘traditional’ family. This, of course, adversely impacts their ability to learn and their chances of becoming confident, community leaders.
La solución: ¿Cuál es tu solución? Sé específico.
Theater is essentially the art of empathy. One literally embodies another character to tell their story. Theater is also play, so it a perfect tool with which to engage children to learn and practice empathy, collaboration, leadership, and improvise to problem solve.
By teaching empathy through participatory theater to orphans, we can build confidence and empathy skills that will empower orphans in the face of injustice. By extending our empathy-focused theater curriculum to school children who are peers of orphans, we can cultivate cultural sensitivity and understanding, practice active listening, and develop the psychological skills of putting ourselves in another person’s shoes to understand their worldview.
The workshops will consist of highly interactive workshops in writing, discussing, and playing improvisational theater games. The youth would create and perform theater scenes centered on topics of discrimination, allowing them to build and utilize empathy skills.
El Modelo: Muéstranos a través de un ejemplo específico cómo tu solución hace una diferencia, incluye tus actividades primarias
In the process of developing and performing theater in these workshops, participants will develop the abilities to problem solve on their feet, understand other people’s motivations through character analysis, listen, cooperate, build confidence, and, most importantly, develop their ability to empathize.
We will excite and educate participants using simple, fun theater games. Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed envisions theater as a place to practice new ways of thinking that actors can then incorporate into real life. We will use scenarios that address discrimination and bullying based on ethnicity, wealth, family status, etc. The students will improvise different scenarios, experiment with different endings, and use question and answer sessions to understand the motivations of each of the characters. They can then use what they have learned to collectively problem solve and enact the solution.
There will also be a strong writing component based on personal exploration. Participants will begin by writing monologues about themselves. They will also interview a peer and write a monologue from that person’s point of view. Then, the children will write their own short scenes about a conflict and its resolution.
Participants will sign up as directors and actors. In rehearsal, we will play, practice, and discuss how to embody the characters physically and mentally. How does the character move? If they are egotistical, how do they walk? If they are insecure, how do they behave? What is causing them to do this in the scene? Finally, they will perform their scenes.
El mercado: ¿Quiénes son tus pares y competidores? Identifica a otros que también estén trabajando para dar respuesta a las necesidades que tú abordas y en qué te diferencias de ellos. ¿Cuáles son los desafíos que estos jugadores podrían representar para tu éxito o crecimiento?
There do not seem to be any NGOs in Nepal with children focusing on building empathy based on difference. We hope to set a precedent for this kind of work in Nepal in other areas of discrimination (such as gender, lifestyle, etc).
One group in Kathmandu is doing social justice street theater about relevant social issues. They, I believe, would be a potential partner, as we could collaborate to give children training with actors from their company, and perhaps partner to increase the sustainability of and expand the vision of both our projects.
Furthermore, this program is unique to social activist theater programs, which work with adults, not children, and use theater to promote a message, rather than using the process of creating theater to teach participants empathy.
Ahora que has pensado en tu innovación, ayúdanos a presentarla.
Define tu empresa, programa, servicio o producto en 1-2 frases cortas. [136 caracteres/25 palabras]
The Kumari Project's program teaches empathy by using theater to help kids understand others' perspectives and become effective leaders.
Identifica lo que es innovador en tu solución en 1-2 frases cortas. [136 caracteres/25 palabras]
Theater is learning to step into another person's shoes. There is no better way to teach kids to internalize empathy through play.
Impacto social
Esta presentación se trata de
¿Cuál ha sido el impacto de la solución hasta la fecha?
The Kumari Project has provided required school uniforms, textbooks, tuition, and nutrition to over 225 Nepalese orphans. This theater program, however, is still in the concept stage. Our Executive Director has extensive history designing similar empathy-building theater programs, most recently, consulting for Minority Rights Group International's EU-grant funded Street Theatre to Combat Racism Program in four countries. Additionally she wrote about implementing an empathy-based theater project in her Theater Studies Thesis at Yale 'Tibet Imagined: An Exploration of Social Change Theater, Movement, and Empathy Production.'
Using theater and play as a vehicle for children to express themselves and explore other people’s perspectives by creating and writing their own characters will build confidence, critical thinking, problem-solving, team-building, and empathy skills in orphans and non-orphans, creating a more accepting learning environment and growing responsive community leaders.
¿Cuál es tu impacto proyectado para los próximos 1-3 años?
Within the next year, we expect to pilot this program in four orphanages and three schools, impacting over 210 children (120 orphans). Then, with continued support, we will repeat our program at each orphanage and expand the program to another three schools that orphans attend and four more orphanages. Finally, in the final year, we will expand this program to all eleven orphanages run by the Nepal Children's Organization, and at least one school attended by kids on those orphanages, reaching all 520 kids in the Nepal Children’s Organization’s children’s homes and even more children at schools that orphans attend, cultivating empathy-building skills in all children who participate in the program.
Las iniciativas ganadoras presentan un plan fuerte de cómo van a alcanzar y realizar un seguimiento del crecimiento. Identifica tus metas a seis meses para el crecimiento de tu impacto
Develop curriculum and pilot it in orphanages and then schools to reach 90 kids.
Identifica tres grandes tareas que tendrás que completar para llegar a las metas de seis meses.
Tarea 1
Develop and finalize curriculum for theater workshops with orphans and mixed orphan and non-orphan groups.
Tarea 2
Schedule logistics for implementing workshops, such as transportation, location, partner organizations, and supplies.
Tarea 3
Schedule and execute pilot workshops totaling 15 hours each in two orphanages (one in Kathmandu and one outside) and one school.
¡Ahora piensa en grande! Identifica tu meta de impacto a 12 meses.
Strengthen the curriculum, expand implementation to more orphanages and schools in rural and urban communities, and perform!
Identifica tres grandes tareas que tendrás que completar para llegar a tu meta de impacto a 12 meses
Tarea 1
Revise curriculum as necessary to strengthen it using experiences from implementing the pilot program.
Tarea 2
Implement program in two more orphanages and two more schools.
Tarea 3
Perform retrospective of entire year in a public community venue or Kathmandu theater locale.
Historia de la fundación: Queremos saber acerca del momento en el que hiciste "¡Ajá!". Comparte la historia de dónde y cuándo el/los fundador(es) vio (vieron) el potencial de esta solución para cambiar el mundo.
I co-created a writing and performance workshop for young Nepalese immigrant women in Queens. The girls often wrote about fights with their mothers about their lack of freedom and how their mothers did not trust them. Two sisters performed a scene in which the eldest played the mother and the youngest, the daughter. As soon as it was over, the eldest exclaimed, “I understand what our mom went through to get us here [America]. We should be nicer to her.” The two sisters commenced to write and perform a scene portraying how they currently treated their mother and how they wanted to recognize the sacrifices she had made for them and be more respectful in the future. I realized then the power theater has to transform, even more than those who watch it, those who perform it.
Sostenibilidad
Cuéntanos sobre tus alianzas.
The Nepal Children’s Organization (NCO) runs the eleven orphanages with which we will be working. Their staff and orphanage directors have been our long-term partners. The Kumari Project’s executive director was adopted from an NCO orphanage. Mitrataa, an Australian organization managing NCO’s largest orphanage, is a partner of ours, sharing with us best practices for improving the well-being, education, and empowerment of Nepalese orphans. In April, we will begin paying tuition directly to schools. This is when we would start developing the empathy theater program in partnership with schools.
¿Qué tipo de equipo (personal, voluntarios, etc.) te asegurará que logres las metas de crecimiento identificadas en la sección de Impacto social/i>?
Our board, stewardship councils, and organizational mentors consist of professionals from across the country with backgrounds in law, finance, education, performance, non-profit/public sector management, business management, marketing and branding, design, grant writing, and implementation of humanitarian service-providing programming overseas. These organizational leaders in addition to our volunteer staff on-the-ground in Nepal will hold us accountable to ensure that we achieve our milestones and support us as we problem solve through possible setbacks.
Por favor, pon en claro las necesidades u ofertas que hayas mencionado anteriormente y/o sugiere categorías de apoyo que no están especificadas en la lista
| Adjunto | Tamaño |
|---|---|
| orphans_with_the_kumari_project.jpg | 865.13 KB |
| the_kumari_project_2.jpg | 671.17 KB |
| the_kumari_project_3.jpg | 80.98 KB |
 | 63 weeks ago Arun Storrs updated this Competition Entry. |
| 63 weeks ago Arun Storrs updated this Competition Entry. |
| 64 weeks ago Arun Storrs updated this Competition Entry. |
| 64 weeks ago Arun Storrs submitted this idea. |