Combating Racism and Xenophobia (1)

Our project brought together 10 young Italians (from Teatro della Limonaia, Firenze) with 13 young Irish people (from Kildare Youth Theatre) for a week to explore attitudes to racism and xenophobia in two European cultures.

Aims:
The aims of the project were:
• To achieve a deeper understanding of the effects of racism and xenophobia on those who experience it
• To understand how our own attitudes and behaviour may contribute to the problem of racism and xenophobia
• To outline a strategy for combating racism and xenophobia on a personal level
• To become aware of policies and structures at national and European levels that combat racism and xenophobia

Outcomes:
• The group created and shared cultural portraits of sociological ‘norms’ and ‘deviances’
• They gained insight to the nature of difference
• They understood how and why the concept of ‘The Outsider’ is constructed in each other’s culture
• They explored the problems associated with refugees and asylum seekers – from the latter’s point of view
• They examined the personal and social construction of racist attitudes and behaviour in their own communities
• They used drama-based methods to explore and depict problems specific to racism and xenophobia.
• Using a specially adapted forum-theatre practice they created meaningful debate on how they can help combat the problems of racism and xenophobia themselves in their own lives and communities.
• They explored European policy and law regarding equality and discrimination with particular focus on racism and xenophobia.

In addition to the above we achieved a close working relationship between the two groups so that the foundations were laid for larger, more long-term projects between them.