Company Information
Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Centre
Company
The Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Centre is located in the Aida Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. The Aida Camp houses 4700 people, approximately 66% of which are children and young people. The Alrowwad Centre seeks to be a place where children and young people can go to escape the daily stresses of living under occupation. Through training in the arts, theatre and other cultural activities, the centre seeks to boost young people's confidence and competencies in a situation that has many damaging psychological effects
The Alrowwad Centre creates what it calls "Beautiful Non-violent Resistance" and is an independent community organization that strives to empower children and women by targeting behaviour and knowledge through beautiful and non-violent means. In addition to its work in the local community, Alrowwad targets the international community to break stereotypes and show another image of Palestinian people and culture. Furthermore, the Centre offers a safe space away from the streets and Israeli soldiers where children can find alternative means of expressing frustration with their living conditions.
The participating children are all aged 6-18 years and are from the camp or the surrounding area. At the Alrowwad Centre they have access to a library, computers, the internet, drama workshops, photo and video training and arts training. The Centre seeks to create a feeling of community and connection between the children and their local area, their national identity and each other. As such, Alrowwad encourages the participation of disabled or other disadvantaged children from the community in order to help them become more integrated into the wider population. For local children, Alrowwad run fun days, theatre days in local schools, animation film making workshops, theatre training and other arts training. The Centre also organised a tour of one of their productions to Sweden, Denmark, France, Egypt, the United States and Belgium from 2000-2006.
The Alrowwad Centre caters for multiple needs in the community. In addition to work with children, Alrowwad has a women's programme consisting of language classes, computer classes, embroidery workshops and job creation. The Centre also attends to psychological needs in the community both through training programmes and evaluation of individual needs, and it sponsors medical assistance days in collaboration with local charities.
