Project Activities and Methodology

"When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful."

Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist.

Methodology

The SILENCE project is based on a "Repair, Recovery, and Resilience Plan" that encompasses six practices. Three practices cascade down, including Expressive Arts, Sisterhood Circle, and Empathy Circle (under the umbrella term of Dramatherapy). Three practices cut across, including Autobiographical Dance-Theater Performance, Guide for a Better Life, and a Sorority Content Channel managed by the women themselves. Each practice serves a specific purpose: breaking the silence and restoring normalcy, fostering empathy, and educating to eliminate male-centric behaviors.

Activities

SILENCE consists of two phases:

The first phase is an intimate and personal phase with the target group through an artistic co-creation residency involving 10 young women aged between 19 and 29. This period of living together is designed for participants to explore and share their experiences and memories through dance and theater, joining other women in the Sisterhood Circle and engaging with loved ones, neighbors, and professionals in the Empathy Circle.

The second phase is community and social-oriented, where an autobiographical dance-theater performance, a Guide for a Beautiful Life, and an online content channel will be created. In essence, Dramatherapy (expressive arts) will be used to process memories and enhance recovery from painful experiences, while Autobiographical Theater (theatrical performance) will promote an understanding of gender diversity based on respect and equality.

International Workshop

The first international workshop was held in Spain to train staff on project methodology and organize activities in a more practical way, addressing the needs and identified objectives of the target group. These objectives centered on the "repair, recovery and reintegration" into the daily life of girls who had been victims of male-dominated violence, abuse and/or maltreatment, resulting in the suspension of their lives. The activities were carried out from 24 to 27 April and were hosted by the Mancommunity

Expressive arts

Expressive arts seek to "break the SILENCE" The trauma retracts the body by an alert brain, activated for survival. The key is the autobiographical memory treated from the somatic. Withdrawal and SILENCE are nothing more than motor actions that close communication with external life for protection; a way to avoid suffering a similar painful experience, and that alters their daily life, making it impossible to return to their routines and social relationships. The vital thing is to help reduce anxiety and fear with activities of confidence and control of physical actions. This first activity aims to disconnect the control of the traumatic memory from the life of the participating girls so that it returns to being and behaving in a healthy way «take out». Being able to stage situations of withdrawal and terror that encapsulate their lives and show the way out of them, some girls to other girls through body expression, improvisation and fictional narrative, generates a powerful Sorority symbiosis that metabolizes the damage of abuse and fertilizes hope. Through dance and staging, we replace the brain's defense system activated in the body with fiction, "distancing to carefully treat the reality that hurts", turning the stage into a protective place. In parallel with the workshops, the project partners continue with the development of the Guide to a beautiful life. The material collected during the workshops will be used, to document what has been achieved. 3 newsletters will be developed to communicate the project activities. A first newsletter will be in month 5 to document what has been achieved in the first phase of the project and what is being achieved in the Expressive arts workshop

Sorority circle

Sorority circle is a good practice to work on the intimate, the personal and the relational with action models focused on coexistence and listening, "avoid loneliness to repair young girls", based on mutual support between them. "The alliance between the girls changes everything." Sorority circle is the second step towards reparation, recovery and resilience, a space where you can share your personal story with other girl victims who understand the background of the problems. A different story with shared memory and the same feeling among the girls. A look from respect and mutual care generates strong networks to change the situation in which they live. In the Sorority circle, we will use the results of the Expressive arts workshop and the results of the Sorority circle will be used for the Circle of empathy. Expressive arts Sorority circle in a continuous feedback loop to break the silenceand benefit the expression of the girls

Circle of Empathy

Circle of Empathy, these are meetings between the young who are victims of sexist abuse and who participate in the project with family members, gender perspective professionals, and interested parties. Verbalize not the traumatic episodes, but how difficult it is to detach them from autobiographical memory. Narrate a safe and understanding environment and how difficult it is to get out of SILENCE and withdraw and return to normality. The idea of returning to the circle is by ancestral and tribal drawing, where no one is excluded or exposed to an audience that watches you, but all the participants and their gazes are in the same position. The intent is to protect re-victimization. Circle of Empathy will begin when the participating girls who have worked in the Sorority Circle and in the Expressive Arts activity, have achieved bonds of sisterhood among themselves and achieved personal resilience "confidence and self-love", being prepared and protected to count your story to family, loved ones, and stakeholders. One circle of Empathy in Spain and another one in Italy.

Scenic Piece

The scenic piece, the dance-theater show will be created from and during activities Sorority Circle and Expressive Arts, since the fictional plot will be autobiographical based on the stories of the participating young girls. The Scenic Piece is the stage that allows us to dismantle prejudices, false beliefs, and stereotypes about reparation and return to the daily life of a victim of sexist violence through a fictional plot and some characters that embody it. These characters will allow us to stage invisible situations for a large part of the population and promote a better understanding of the emotional and psychological consequences of abuse. For this reason, The scenic piece is focused on the largest party involved, society. Art is a universal language, it excites us, inspires us -it moves us and moves us- no matter where we are. Art tells stories, makes us reflect alone and in the community, affects what we think about what surrounds us, awakens our judgment about others and even rethinks our beliefs, breaks myths and changes the perception of the world. Art is the fiction that puts you in front of your eyes, biographies far removed from your world, all that which would be impossible to see from reality, concentrated in a moment and in a space in an emotional and empathetic way, which makes it the incentive to make changes. The autobiographical dance theater starts from that premise; metaphorize the memory that hurts to distance suffering and achieve resilience