Davis Peace Project: Peace-building Through Storytelling
(2017)
Project Title: Peace-building through Storytelling
Project Location: Lyari, Karachi, Pakistan
Date: Summer 2017
Local Partners: Kiran School and its partner school DCTO (a government school adopted by Kiran Foundation).
Sponsoring college: International House (NYC)
Student, Home Country, College: Meher Jaffri, Pakistan, The New School (NYC)
UWC attended: UWC – South East Asia
MISSION:
Peace-Building Through Storytelling project aimed to use storytelling, creative writing and the performing arts as a means of building critical thinking skills and self-expression and expanding perspectives, i.e. the preconditions for peace. With guidance from the Davis advisors at I-House, this project was an attempt to revive and promote the storytelling culture amongst marginalized youth in Karachi, Pakistan with a focus on the tradition of Urdu storytelling and theatre.
CURRICULUM:
The final curriculum had 5 groups of students (each group comprising 10-12 students)
who went through the following program:
The first group of children (selected by the administration as academic high performer) was
handpicked by for an 8-week Theatre workshop, working towards putting up a theatre play for the
community and possible future donors. The play was be performed on September 22nd, 2017.
A 3-day Storytelling workshop followed by a 3-day Spoken Word workshop.
