First Impressions of Afghanistan and the Creativity in Action Program

Heddy Lahmann-Rosen, a Bond Street company member, just returned from her first visit to Afghanistan with Michael and Joanna for our new, two-year Creativity in Action program. Heddy will visit Afghanistan a handful of times during the course of the program, acting as our Outside Evaluator, and eventually using this research in her PhD thesis. 

I'm a little late to the party on getting a blog entry going for my time with the Creativity in Action program in Afghanistan, but I'll do my best to give a flavor of the whole experience. 

I embarked upon the adventure to Kabul with Michael and Joanna in mid-January, and I stayed for 2 weeks. Joanna and Michael are still there working away at building this program and making sure it's got the wings to keep flying when they come back.

My first week primarily consisted of a good amount of administrative work and preparation for this big and ambitious program. This baby is no small feat! The Creativity in Action program is 2-year youth development project that includes 15 young people from each of 25 provinces across Afghanistan (375 youth in all!). The program is providing jobs for local Afghan artists to work with youth– teaching them about expressing themselves and accessing their creativity, and then mentoring them and supporting them as they create and implement improvement projects in their own communities. If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited about it. So excited in fact that I'm centering my (eventual) dissertation around this phenomenal program!

So what's Kabul like? That’s kind of a tough question to answer, because I didn't really see so much of the outside world except through the car window. What did I see out the window? Well, Kabul is less conservative than other parts of the country. Some women wear burqa’s, although there are very few women on the streets anyway. I’d say it’s like 90% men. Unpaved roads for the most part. The air outside smells smoky from the ovens they use to warm homes. It’s winter and pretty cold – ranging from around 35 degrees F to 50. The heating isn't what we’re used to in the US, so lots of layers are necessary. It even snowed a few days while I was there!

The driving in Kabul is really something. It’s positively fearless (except for a Western passenger like me) – I mean, we navigated through the most insane tangle of cars on the way home one night– I thought we might be in serious trouble and stuck there for awhile (because if we were in the US, we would have) – but somehow our driver just wriggled, honked, and near-missed his way through. It was something to behold. 

The food is awesome! Maybe with the exception of breakfast, but that’s just because they don’t really do breakfast like we do. But everything else was AMAZING. Flower street, which had several florists up and down the street, was very pretty! Butcher street is not so pretty, as you might imagine.

The Afghan people I had the opportunity to meet are lovely. Very kind and warm. I met and spent some time with the Afghan artists who are/will be leading the youth workshops and are long time friends and creative partners of BST. They were all so eager to share their thoughts and experiences with such openness and enthusiasm. It was a major highlight!

I also had the opportunity to see some of the youth workshops in action in the Balkh region. I had such a wonderful time  meeting and getting to know the youth participating. They're a very inspirational group. They were incredibly warm and welcoming and had many questions about my doctoral program and my experience of being in their country. They are all very concerned and passionate about the state of their community and country and are eager to talk about the problems they see and ideas for ways to go about addressing them. I was pretty floored by how engaged they were with the whole process from the get-go. After I left, the youths from Balkh and Kunar met in Kabul for a combined workshop. This program provides a unique opportunity for connecting young passionate problem-solvers from across the country and across ethnic divides. It's killing me to have missed the Kabul workshop! But alas, my spring semester classes beckoned me back. I've been living vicariously through email updates from Joanna on the collective workshop with the 2 groups in Kabul- I will let her tell it- from what I read, the experience is something truly special.

I'm already looking forward to my return!

Youth from across Afghanistan collaborate in Kabul

Joanna keep us up-to-date about the goings-on in Kabul. Afghan Project Leaders have completed workshops in Balkh and Kunar, and now youth from both groups are in Kabul together for a week of workshops, training, and idea-sharing.

Joanna Reports:

This morning the participants were all happily doing warm-ups and exercises. Now they are creating their "community mapping" (drawing their region) and then their "ideal communities" (as mixed Kunar-Balkh groups, hopefully sharing their ideas about what makes an "ideal" community).  

The sounds of laughter fill the house as it should be.  

They did their "community profiles" last night.  Very interesting -- each presentation was really really well done!  The issues that rise to the top are environment, medical, and women's rights.  The Balkh girls were all about pre-marriage testing to prevent certain diseases, and the need for vaccinations.  Both the Balkh and Kunar guys were most concerned by the wanton cutting of trees, soil erosion and proliferation of trash.  And the Kunar girls showed some shocking photos of the violence against women, including trading girls for bad debts, and blaming women for the crimes of others.  Unbelievable!  

We worked with the girls all together this morning and the Kunar girls are ready to speak out... but still cover up the second a male or a camera is anywhere close.  Three are daughters of other active women, and the other two need some gentle coaxing... but that's okay.  They will all help each other I hope.  

And then, two days later…

The workshops are continuing well! It is super-busy and also super-fun.  

We have had some great guests speaking about youth activism, how to meet challenges, how to get the government to listen, etc.  And today we went to the Presidential Palace!  It was grand... and an amazing experience for the youth -- like a trip to the White House to meet ... well, okay, not Obama... but maybe Joe Biden.  

We had a two-hour session with one of the top people during which the participants stood up and talked about their issues. Wow.  Can you imagine getting a chance to air all your grievances with some top government person who is actually listening and writing it all down. Even the Kunar girls all covered up stood up and gave their rant.  The guy was very moved, and then he told us that he had also had this idea to set up creative youth projects in different provinces, then bringing the groups together and implementing the projects.  So he was very happy that we were doing just that.  

This Balkh-Kunar collaboration is the first of many in the coming years. Groups from across Afghanistan will come to Kabul and share ideas with group members from a different province, each with their own issues, solutions, history, and culture. Stay posted for more updates from the field! 

Intern Spotlight: Katherine Connolly

Back by popular demand! The 2013 Summer Intern Spotlight highlights the experiences of our three incredible summer interns. This week, recent graduate Katherine Connolly discusses her many passions and the value of being label-less.

I’m from Maryland, “The Old Line State.”  The Line is the one drawn in 1763 by Mr. Mason and Mr. Dixon,  which eventually became the division between free and slave states east of the Ohio River. And yet by the time the Civil War rolled around, Maryland was part of the Union (with some help from President Lincoln and Union forces). So much for drawing clear lines.

Over a century later,  the ambiguity remains. Maryland is too southern for the North and to northern for the South. The Tourism Bureau will tell you we’re “America in miniature,” with almost every kind of environment except a desert. Maryland is a blurred area, a melting pot of the melting pot.  The No Line State.

Why a Maryland history lesson in a post about the great work of Bond Street Theatre? Well, for those of you who know and love BST the connection shouldn’t be that hard to make. It made perfect sense to me the minute I stumbled across the BST website. Here is an organization that encompasses everything I am passionate about; a theatre that blurs lines and defies categorization. A perfect and exciting mix of traditional theatre, clowning, education, development, empowerment, healing, international collaboration, acrobatics etc. etc.

As a Maryland girl, I am comfortable with blurred lines. In June I graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in global development studies and drama. To the theatre community I was a development person and to the GDS world I was a theatre person. Even my majors were a mix of disciplines; The drama major included technique and theory in all aspects of theatre, and GDS, an interdisciplinary program, included any class that could justifiably relate to the study of development. The highlight of my education was attempting to draw the lines between the two fields and finding ways to make those connections that BST has understood for decades.

Throughout my internship here at BST I’ve loved discovering all of the hats BST wears. My tasks as a summer intern have mirrored the diversity of BST’s work.  I’ve had the opportunity to build upon my background in political engagement in Afghanistan by providing research and programmatic support for the recent Educating the Electorate Project. I’ve contributed to the domestic focus by working with Heddy, Ilana, and Gretchen to develop marketing materials for the new YAP show, Amelia and Her Paper Tigers. Michael, Joanna, and Olivia have allowed and encouraged me to explore my interests in varied projects from assisting with grant-writing and editing, to researching potential projects in South Sudan and Arab Spring nations, to mapping out the structure of the UN. The more I work in different areas, the more I come to understand the importance of BST’s work.

So if you can’t quite figure out what category to put BST in, I would say you’ve discovered the true gem of BST’s work. This is a group of artists that redefines, bends, blurs, ignores, challenges, engages and defies lines. A no line state of cross-cultural artistic organization. BST thrives on collaboration and imagination. In a world of separation, of borders between us and them, what better approach than artistic collaboration? BST sees a future lying  in the grey areas, and this Maryland girl is honored to be a part of that work.

Katherine taught some of BST's acrobatics to her cousins during their beach vacation.