Educate 150 Disadvantaged Young People in Poland

The project started in October 2005 thanks to the grant from the European Union (European Social Fund): $ 107,780. For the last 7 months 100 disadvantaged young people have been attending 8 theatre groups and two computer arts groups once a week. The theatre workshops are held at the State Orphanage in Bielsko-Biala, the Secondary School no 7, The Catholic ‘Nadzieja’ Therapy Centre for teenage victims of addictions, three Resocialisation Centres, the Community Centre at Plac Fabryczny and the Regional Hospital in Bulowice.

The computer arts workshops are held at the premises of our Grodzki Theatre Assocation in our computer room, which is well equipped in modern technologies. The young people in these groups come from The Catholic ‘Nadzieja’ Therapy Centre for teenage victims of addictions and from the Resocialisation Centre no 1 in Bielsko-Biala. Here you can see the work of our workshop participants (computer animations and short films). They were all complete beginners at the computer arts at the beginning of the project, so their progress is considerate:

http://www.teatrgrodzki.pl/projekty/efs_warsztaty/grupy_art/grupa_01.html

http://www.teatrgrodzki.pl/projekty/efs_warsztaty/grupy_art/grupa_02.html

All the theatre groups have already performed twice in public presenting their new achievements and skills in front of large audiences of 300 people, which boosted their confidence and made them very proud of their work. The first presentation took place on 14th December in front of the Town Hall of Bielsko-Biala during the Christmas Event organised by our Assocation and ran by our Chairman (the Angel in the pictures). It was attended by the local authorities including the Mayor of the town, by teachers and educators, the families of our workshops participants and the journalists (there were very positive comments in the press after the event). You can see some photos here from the performaces in December (attached).

The second presentation of the work of our workshop groups took place on 23rd January at the local community centre Dom Zolnierza in Bielsko-Biala. It was also attended by around 300 people and each group showed a complete drama on a chosen theme. There was lots of applause, congratulations and laughter.

The next presentation of our workshop groups will take place on 10th June at the annual Festival of the Small and the Bigg organised by our Grodzki Theatre Assocation.

We would like to extend the number of disadvantaged young people benefiting from free arts workshops from 100 to 150 for which we need an extra $ 22,135.

• Photos of the first and second presentations! (DOC)