 Thanks to funding from the BBC Children in Need, Theatr Fforwm Cymru is now into the second year of a major Emotional Intelligence project, focussing on young people aged 0-18 in North Pembrokeshire.
Director Gill Dowsett takes up the story:
“By training local artists, this grant enabled us to offer many rural children and young people, disadvantaged by a lack of local resources, the opportunity to experience a wide variety of art forms. These have included forum theatre, environmental art, mask making, music and rapping, dance and drumming, song-writing and mindfulness. Through these workshops, the children and young people are able to explore their emotional world and to see how their emotions might affect their thinking and behaviour and vice-versa. Problems with difficult and damaging behaviour have been slowly increasing amongst school age children and young people in North Pembrokeshire, particularly in the pockets where unemployment and deprivation are high. As an often forgotten “backwater” of the County, this project has been unique to the area.
The project has clearly been successful in many ways.
It has reached out to over 400 local children and young people, many of whom had no previous involvement with the art forms provided.
As well as the value of the process for the children, there are also some amazing artistic products that have resulted from the project including, 3 large murals, a huge carved dragons head, an outside story telling circle with carved wooden seats for the children, children’s terracotta and glazed footprints in an outside garden area., plus a variety of masks, song lyrics and CDs.
Just a small example of the feedback from the schools include
“Teachers and LSAs enjoyed the experience and were amazed at the way the children responded, especially children in the support (special needs) class.”
“all 4 projects were successful as we saw the children taking part, even the shy ones.”
“Communicating in such workshops allowed the children to “open up” in a different way.
“A really worthwhile partnership for our school. The children really gained a lot educationally and emotionally.”
“Children not involved were desperate to take part.”
“The project acted as a springboard for further discussion about feelings and ambition.”
This has been a very important project for us and has greatly improved our relationship with the local community. As a national charity, much of our work is away or is very discreet and unseen. It has been great to work with our own community and for them to understand what we do, local press coverage of the murals etc. has also helped to raise the profile of the whole project. We very much hope to extend this work over the next couple of years and to build on the good relationships that we have begun to build. We also hope to increase the understanding of local schools, youth groups and parents etc. of the importance of taking account of children’s emotional developmental needs.”
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