Children Show off Talent, Promote Solidarity

To celebrate the accomplishments of a fruitful 2011, the Policy Center’s Alternative Education Club street dance and theater groups showed off their talent through two public performances at the end of December. With family members, friends, but also established artists, and high-ranking diplomats in attendance, the shows rewarded the children’s hard work while promoting a sense of solidarity that transcends race and ethnicity among the audience.

His Excellency Johannes Hendrik Mattheus (Matthijs) van Bonzel, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Romania, was one of some 200 people in the audience at Sala Dalles on December 20, when Policy Center’s Born for Trouble (B4T) dance troupe participated in an all-night street dance show entitled “United through Dance” and organized by Trouble Crew, one of Romania’s most talented young dance troupes, who also manage a dance school. [singlepic id=32 w=320 h=240 float=right] In addition to B4T and Trouble Crew, the show featured several other street dance and break dance acts by children and youth coached by Trouble instructors, who have been working with the children from the Alternative Education Club at School 136 in Ferentari for over a year.

On December 21, the Club’s theater group staged a performance of The Monkeys’ Rebellion, a fable adapted for the children by actor Sorin Sandu of Masca Theater, who has been teaching children from School 136 acting and theater production skills since early 2011. The performance took place at Casa Universitarilor in central Bucharest, with special guest Marie-Louise Thaning, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Sweden in Bucharest in the attendance, next to the children’s families and friends.

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Members of B4T and the theater group hail from Ferentari, one of Bucharest’s most impoverished, marginalized and socially-deprived neighborhoods. The Policy Center works in Ferentari to fight social exclusion, racism and discrimination, issues that are plaguing Romanian society. Its Alternative Education Club, which was established with seed funding by the Embassy of the Netherlands, provides the children with a positive environment and opportunities to learn, play and acquire invaluable life skills under the guidance of volunteer teachers who act both as mentors and role models for the children.