This two-part workshop for all ages offered techniques for connecting and caring for children. Building a connection and understanding can be challenging across generations, especially when you are a stranger in a distressing situation or you do not share a language.
In the first part of the workshop, participants drew on tools from clowning, puppetry, mime, and dance to provide a range of techniques to develop trust and empathy across language and age divides. Games, tricks, and activities connect us to our own child-self so that we can better work with others. By entering the world and language of play that children all speak innately, we can better understand and serve them. In the second part of the workshop, participants recognized each body’s unique lived experience and noticed the memories we hold in our bodies- physical, mental, and emotional- and explored ways to offer care and healing for ourselves and others. Drawing on the spirit of play from the first half, participants approached violence and pain with curiosity and humor, using storytelling and artmaking to unearth joy.
This event was co-sponsored by the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues; Walsh School of Foreign Service; Center for Child and Human Development; Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service; Global Human Development Program; Global Health Institute; and Laboratory on Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. It is part of the Children in a World of Challenges Workshop series.
