South Bank Meeting

Ok. So there are five of us going: Jeremy, Emma, Frances, Andrea and me. And Samar who has arranged the whole thing. We'll be working in one of the southern suburbs of Beirut , Dahieh. I'll be with a group of young 'volunteers' from Samidoun. That organisation has been working with refugees and displaced people in the area since before the bombing began in July and their volunteers, as I understand it, will be young people some employed, some not, who will develop the skills they acquire next week to work, in the future, with local young people.

The other workshop leaders will be working directly with kids from Dahieh doing a range of activities including, movement, music- and mask-making.

We talk about the spaces we'll be in. We talk about the length of time we'd be working each day. About us meeting and sharing ideas each morning. About our plans and schemes of work for next week. About having a plan but staying flexible. About each group making some kind of public performance, perhaps, at the end. We talk about documenting the work. About being sensitive to the people we'll be working with. About not being intrusive. Remembering that the people we work with may appear ok on the surface, but that underneath they may still not have fully recovered. About practicals too. About slightly bulky DV cameras and whether you can get them on aeroplanes any more. About cameras, film, musical instruments, paper, plaster-casts, CD's and internet connections. About a blog.

We have a T shirt conversation. There's an idea about us wearing - or at least being given - I love Lebanon T shirts to wear as we step off the plane. The 'We will not be silent' T Shirts are also mentioned...

I am now going to invite everyone else onto this site, and when we get to Dahieh, all the workshop participants too.

corniche.