Children
with Down's syndrome enjoy a performance of "The Neighborhood's Tree,"
an Iraqi fable, by a theater troop at the Hibako Allah Center In
Baghdad.
Children
with Down's syndrome enjoy a performance of "The Neighborhood's Tree,"
an Iraqi fable, by a theater troop at the Hibako Allah Center In
Baghdad. The troop is funded with a grant from All Our Children. UMNS
photo courtesy of Church World Service. Photo number W04029,
Accompanies UMNS #050, 2/10/04
BAGHDAD, Iraq (UMNS) - No one can accuse theater director Fadhil Abbas of lacking enthusiasm.
Rushing
off to support his small theater troupe in its next performance, Abbas
is eager to see the reaction of the audience - in this case, dozens of
students attending the Hibako Allah Center, a Baghdad school for
youngsters with Down's syndrome.
If
past performances are any indication, the reaction to today's play -
"The Neighborhood's Tree," a fable about children saving a tree from
being cut down - will prove a hit.
It is.
The
children, many of them between the ages of 8 and 13, laugh and applaud
this tale, redolent of so much that has happened in Iraq during their
young lives. One of the play's themes explores the difference in Arabic
between the word for love, pronounced "hub," and the word for war,
pronounced "hurb."
"Love,"
another play performed elsewhere by the troupe, is a morality tale
exploring the relationship between two feuding cats that eventually opt
to resolve their differences peacefully.
To
the students, plots are probably less important than the mere presence
of actors like Sadoun Al-Jebory, whose enthusiasm and exuberance are
contagious.
"You can touch and feel their happiness," Abbas said of the students.
Sahira Abdul Latif, the school's founder, said the actors' presence caused a spark in some students she had not seen before.
Happiness, of course, has been hard-won for Iraqi children, which is why performances like these are signs of hope, she said.
They
are also a sign of international solidarity. These and other
performances by Abbas' troupe are being funded with a $20,800 grant from
the All Our Children campaign, an inter-agency effort of U.S. churches,
including the United Methodists, and ecumenical agencies. Church World
Service is the coordinating agency.
Funding
from the grant is enabling the troupe to mount 30 performances in and
around Baghdad, providing a sense of emotional health for children who
have already lost a part of their childhoods amid war, looting and
insecurity - and particularly those who, like the students at the Hibako
Allah Center, already face severe disadvantages.
To
Abbas, the need to create theater for traumatized children filled a
needed void in a post-war Iraq still experiencing violence and
insecurity. "No one was thinking about the children," he recalled. That
prompted him to organize fellow actors into the troupe.
Nothing, he believes, could be more important or beneficial at the moment in Iraq than making children happy.
Why? "Because they are our future."
*Herlinger, a journalist and staff member of Church World Service, visited Iraq in January.
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