South Sudan Program

... Coming soon!

"I will used the training and experiences in my life by training our young generation on how to love, trust, and been kind to one another and to training our elder[s] to accept the change in everyone's life."
- youth participant, South Sudan, age 22

• Trained 25 refugee and migrant teens (age 12-17) in Bond Street's social theatre techniques.
• Trained 3 members of Deti Peterburga (Children of St. Petersburg), a non-profit organization that helps women and children integrate into Russian society through language courses and arts programming.
• Created an original performance with 9 of the teens, which revealed their feelings of being isolated and excluded in their new home. The new play, titled Prosto Poniat (Understanding is Easy), was created by and featured the teens and included three members of Bond Street Theatre.
• Toured the show across the city to 9 locations, reaching over 250 people.

"It "
- Mukhabat, Juba, age 23

Although migrants and refugee families contribute to the growth and development of Saint Petersburg, the current sentiment of “Russia for the Russians” has intensified each year, and the level of tolerance among the local population has declined. Theatre training encouraged teens to share their voice!  Revealing their feelings of being outcasts in a new country at this crucial time in their lives has encouraged empathy and understanding in audiences. After the post-show discussions, young audience members clamored around them for autographs and selfies - now, they feel like “rockstars”!

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Performance Synopsis

The performance opens with the group trying to create a tower with little success, since each person is speaking in a different language: Pashto, French, English, Uzbek, Tajik and Russian.  Two narrators - one an optimist and one a skeptic - debate the idea that people can confront their prejudices and manage to get along. They continue their debate through a variety of scenes that illustrate the difficulties of being a teen in general, and the situation of being an outsider trying to fit in in a new country.  

"I enjoyed most that we succeeded to everything together - we succeeded to make a castle."
- Sarvinoz, Tajikistan, age 12