Hear from previous Dramatic Need volunteers.
Michelle Marrion, New York, USA
Liz, my fellow volunteer from London, and I taught drama and photography workshops respectively at Naledi Ya Masa primary school near the border of Botswana and St. Catherine’s primary school in Bapong.
All of the students were sweet as suckers, and excited about their visitors. At St.
Catherine's the kids spoke better English, were more urbanized and harder to impress
than the kids of Sesobe who had grown up on farms. My month in Sesobe taught me a
great deal about what the kids responded best to and absorbed the most, so although we
had double the 
students, and half the time at St. Catherine's, in many ways we moved much faster. St. Catherine's also armed us with the help of excited teachers who, unlike some of the Sesobe teachers, had cars or easy access to transportation that allowed them
to stay the whole day at school. At each school we culminated the workshops with a
community photo exhibit and drama presentations.
When I would finish teaching earlier than Liz, I'd sometimes peek through the classroom windows, glimpsing vignettes of kids animating themselves in circles, miming, dancing, and acting out scenarios. The teachers were shocked to see some kids, who failed to participate in academic classes coming to life, dancing exuberantly and participating during the drama exercises. One child in Bapong wrote Liz a letter, saying how much she loved drama and how she felt so special that we had wound up at her school. The teachers at St. Catherine were particularly excited and active in our classes, which made the process easier. They lamented that we could not have scheduled a longer stay. The vice principal commented that she now realized how different children respond to different stimuli, and that she will incorporate some of these exercises in the future. During the miming exercises, some of them improvised scenarios from their home lives where family members were sick, or drinking excessively. All of us were taken aback. Of all the things a little kid's imagination could conjure up to mime in a fun exercise, this is what was foremost in their minds. Everyone was excited about the potential therapeutic affects these exercises could have on the children.
Sister Gerard, our home stay mother, always had many questions about what we were doing with the children, and looked at us inquisitively as we schlepped back after school with the giant poster paper, cardboard, plexiglass, and photo equipment we used from day to day.
One afternoon during tea, she looked curiously at my pile of supplies becluttering her tidy countertop. I asked her if she would like me to show her what we’ve been doing in class that week. She nodded, and I taught her how to make a sun print: She picked out flowers and leaves from her well kept garden, fashioned her design, sandwiched it with the plexi, and exposed it to light for a minute or so. I then slipped it into a basin of water, and as her latent image took form on the blue paper she was captivated. As I removed it she saw clearly that a photograph had formed, and she gasped.
"Oh, Michelle. It's wonderful. I want to do it with all the sisters!" I carefully handed it to her, and as she held it up, light from the window shone through it. She seemed somewhere else, as she traced the shapes with her delicate fingertips. With seemingly newfound understanding she said, "I've been wondering, how can photography be a profession?! And what are you teaching the children? But now I see. It's creative. It's beautiful."
Miranda Egan Langley, Dublin, Ireland
As a drama facilitator I have always been incredibly interested in the impact of the arts in vulnerable communities. My primary focus of work has been in theatre for development or theatre in conflict zones so when I heard from a friend about a charity called Dramatic Need I was immediately intrigued. After some research I discovered that the organisation was primarily based in South Africa, working with some of the most challenging rural communities in the country. It did not take me long to send in an application form.
I was paired with Kirsten Tootell, an art teacher who has also worked in drama. Theatre being my main area of focus we decided to split our work into two 
separate entities, Kirsten focusing on art and myself on drama, collaborating all along and team working where possible. We both worked towards our objective to create an end product which could be then displayed to the rest of the school as a means of creating a conclusive end to our project.
It is imperative that the impact of ones work in these communities is one that can be recognised by both the school itself and the students, one that is lasting rather then transient. Although working towards a product we were allowing the learners to feel that they had accomplished something, something that they themselves had ownership of, it was also necessary to reiterate our long term intentions in relation to the content of our work.
In obtaining what the learners had focused on with, previous volunteers, it was possible for us then to establish a sense of continuity in their work. We also attempted, as much as possible to adhere to the needs of the school curriculum, because through creating an artistic medium for young people to express themselves, we are also providing an incredible tool for education. Of course this process was not necessarily a smooth ride, and as always, intentions and objectives will change throughout the process, however the learners were consistently engaged, focused and eager to participate. Themes varied from different age groups, from female emancipation and knife crime to animal stories in the jungle.
Our aim was to enable these children to realise their voice, whether that be up on stage in front of twenty to thirty people, or through painting their inner thoughts quietly at a desk. For both us there were many moments of fulfilment, from little year twos acting out their Meer cats in front of the whole school, to older year sevens recreating a violent gang scene.
One such important moment was watching a young girl perform on stage in front of her whole school. We had been told before we began the project that this girl had only recently joined and that she barely spoke. She had come from an extremely rural area and was not used to other people. When asked a question she had a tendency to burst into tears. Watching her up on stage, speaking loudly and confidently, pushing her boundaries then perhaps she may ever have anticipated was certainly a special moment.
It is through organisations like Dramatic Need that young people of these communities are finding their voice, and thus the long term impact of such work will no doubt be immense, changing the face of future generations to come.
