We believe that dramas and dramatic heroes can be used in formal and non-formal education as well, not just to ensure information and knowledge regarding the values and challenges of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller theaters and communities for young people, but also in order to empower them.

Dramas focus on dramatic heroes who react to challenging situations when making decisions, taking responsibility, and doing actions that bring some change in their own life or the ones living in their communities. Such dramatic heroes are very similar to active citizens in general. They are diverse regarding their roots, values, decisions and activities, some of them succeed, meanwhile others fail. As we show different stories and heroes when highlighting different plays during our Roma Heroes workshops until now held in Hungary, Romania, Spain and Italy - the participating young people can discuss which value, decision or heroes are attractive for them, no matter why. There is no good or bad answer regarding preferred values and heroes, but it’s important that the young people can take into consideration the different aspects and can make their own decisions also regarding the preferred stories, heroes and also in their future life.

Most of the young people participating in such workshops - where we don’t just deal with the heroes of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller dramas, but also the heroes of the participants, and also their own heroic acts - recognize that they can also be active citizens and make responsible decisions in challenging situations. They can gain belief that they can shape our common future somehow, which is the first step for any kind of change. The GRT (Gypsy, Roma, Traveller) and non-GRT participants can also meet non-stereotypical values and aspects of Roma culture and communities, which shape the Gypsy, Roma or Traveller-image also among GRT (Gypsy, Roma, Traveller) and non-GRT participants, show the human similarities, and the challenges of the different groups, too. In our point of view, it’s very important to show Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heroes who usually don’t get enough focus in mainstream communication and culture.

Below you can find the general frame of our workshops - which are always different according to the time frames and the characteristics of the participants. Afterwards you can see the backgrounds of each play in focus, and their potential elaboration - which we usually do after screening the focus scene videos of the given plays and reading the excerpts of the dramas together with the participants.