This initiative was an online theatre workshop organised by our volunteers in collaboration with the amazing drama instructor Konstantinos Marougkas. The project was part of “Peace in Practice: Supporting young people to become peace envoys”, supported by the Council of Europe through the European Youth Foundation. 

We at SCI Hellas used to facilitate street theatre activities before the pandemic, as a social inclusion method for migrants and refugees as well as to promote peace values over Athens. This time, due to the lockdown but also thanks to 100 Actions for Peace, we decided to move online, to stay safe from COVID-19 and to prove that we can also have fun with online activities. 

Imagining Peace through Theatre 

Theatre is the root of Greek society, history and culture, and this art has always been a tool for social change. We want to be part of the change also this time, especially with the issue about “What is Peace”. 

In the first part of the workshop, participants were sharing their personal approaches about what peace means for them and we all learned from others’ perspectives in a safe space. During the second part, we warmed up with body and face expressions – having a lot of fun, for sure – but the greatest activity was the improvisations! 

In pairs, all participants were preparing short representations related to peace or conflict situations, opening deep discussions about how we represent and analyse peace for each one. The creative skills performed were wonderful, unexpected sometimes because it is the first online workshop we do in this way and we all enjoyed playing and watching the sketches that were bringing back the first reflections of the workshop. 

We are Peace Actors 

From SCI Hellas, Dora and Jonathan are actively participating in online initiatives about online facilitation. For the theatre practical activities, we are grateful for the amazing contribution of Konstantinos Marougkas. 

Konstantinos is a drama instructor who teaches theatrical education in schools and groups. He belongs to a theatrical group called “Indigo” and they perform in theatres. He is scientifically interested in the dramatisation of texts and is the author of two books.

About the participants, we had a great mix in both sessions between people involved in SCI also from other countries and different backgrounds attending the workshop from Greece, including migrants, second-generation migrants and refugees from Nigeria, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Ivory Coast. 

All these personal views about What is Peace were contributing to the intercultural exchange, making the workshop super interesting and enriching for all of us. 

The Peace Prize 

This exchange of stories and experiences is vital to our goals of social inclusion at SCI Hellas and our mission to bring a more peaceful world through cooperation and understanding. We value everyone equally as well as the beauty of our diversity and such a project helps to bring people together to share stories and cultures. This project aimed to explore what Peace really means and how to achieve this goal.

We received great feedback from our participants who wish to participate in future projects, so we would like to thank all our Peace Actors (participants, facilitators and organisers) for making this project possible and for ensuring its success. We hope to create more projects of this kind moving forward, and that our future projects can be as successful as this one was.