Refugee and Asylum Seekers
Working with Theatr Fforwm Cymru was a powerful and enriching experience. Praxis has found a partner who understands both theory and practice of empowerment from which there are long and lasting benefits for communities and their leaders. They have an intuition for the experience of displaced people arising from a capacity to listen, empathise and challenge. They are able to reflect back an authentic story to the participants and in turn receive the strength of a community which is understood and empowered to articulate its own demands.
Vaughan Jones Director Praxis
We began our work with this group, some years ago in Newport. Having been asked to work with a group of young men, we prepared forum theatre to show at the Newport RCO (Refugee Community Organisation) AGM. This was one of the most moving pieces of work we have ever been involved with.
Since then we have been fortunate enough to receive a 3 year core funding grant from the Baring Foundation, specifically for developing work with refugee, asylum seekers and migrant workers.
2006 saw us very actively involved in an Action Learning Exchange which took place in Cardiff with RCOs from all over the UK. This was the third A.L.E. organised by Praxis, a charity from London that works specifically with migrant issues. The two previous exchanges had taken place over the past 2 years in London and Glasgow.
The four days of this event (attended by over 100 delegates) were varied, exciting and vibrant.
For our part we were asked to “hold” the circles that we used to open and close the days, run the final day “open space” sessions and present a piece of forum/legislative theatre that we had devised with asylum seekers from Newport.
This was a remarkable forum that had to be extended to a second day because the delegates had so many ideas that they wanted to try. This truly was Forum Theatre at its best!
Now we are talking to R.C.O.s in Wales to look at the possibility of developing some regional Agorae ….. so watch this space! | 
