Dear friends and colleagues,

 
we would like to thank you once again for your support and solidarity with female jokers community in Ukraine. We would like to inform you that the biggest part of the money collected from you was used to hold a 3-day workshop with Birgit Fritz in Poland in September last year and 2-day strategic meeting of the community for further self-support and development in the context of war. We did mapping of our activities since February 2022 that resulted in the conclusion "We had saved ourselves!" and developing  the Tree of dreams for TO community development in Ukraine.

See feedback about the value of Birgit's workshop for members of our community and its contribution to support local communities in Ukraine during war time.

I was dreaming about learning from the international jokers of the Theater of the Oppressed a year ago, in Berdyansk, when we were just establishing our TO community. And this dream came true in Poland - at the workshop of Birgit Fritz.
Nowadays, changes are happening to me. Thanks to Birgit’s workshop, I have become more confident in myself as a joker and the leader of the local Forum Theater group and packed together all my previous work experience. "Slow" - "Sense" - "Simple", "Action - Reflection!" - the words that Birgit wrote at the beginning of the workshop really resonated with me! The basic principles of working with a group, the use of playfulness, exercises for the developing imagination, the use of physical objects to enhance the quality of exercises, and much more, I put everything to my joker backpack arsenal
After the workshop I also  began to listen to myself and my body: "How am I?", "What do I want?" , "What do I feel now?".
I like to work with mygroup. I have a team: a group of experienced people with whom I have been working for five years, who help me and motivate me to continue to play. I am already using some knowledge (using fairy tales, musical instruments, puppet theater) but most importantly I received motivation to continue this work during the war.

2) Alla Melnichuk,  female joker, Berdiansk - Ternopil
The war in Ukraine continues for eight years, but the last 11  months have become the most difficult. The number of people affected by Russian aggression is increasing every day. These injuries can stay with people for their whole life. Injuries that cannot be treated with medication.



I feel that  theater of the oppressed can help people overcome the consequences of these traumas/ And I am looking for ways to strengthen myself and our community of practitioners in this sphere. Dramatherapy became the next step for me, a new method to help the people I am working with.


The biggest challenge was the question "Is it the right time to study when people are dying around", "Would I be able to concentrate on studying when I worry about my friends under fire every day", "Would they use a new method?". I still don't have answers to these questions. But I know that participation in the workshop definitely helped me. To think about myself, about my injury, about how I can take care of myself. And after the workshop, I wanted to give this feeling to the participants of my workshops. It filled me with strength to believe in the future and in changes.

There is a long road ahead to the recovery of every Ukrainian. And I'm glad that now I have a tool that can help. Thank you for your support. It was a very important event for me as a joker.

 

3) Valdyslava Kryzhna, female joker, Kramatorsk - Bibrka, Lviv region


Study with Birgit opened up new possibilities in theatre for me. Life in our country changed after the full-scale invasion of Russia. We, as a society, will feel the consequences of this war for a long time. Therefore, my theater workshops can no longer be the same as before. I need new knowledge and training.



Training with Birgit became one of those opportunities for me. The main thing is that these techniques are interesting, and most importantly, they are simple to apply. I have already tried some of them with the group. Everything had worked fine. I plan not to stop.


After this training, I became seriously interested in drama therapy and would like to continue my studies and practice in this area.