Thank you for your inspiring description of the activities of the Bidja Clan in giving voice to voiceless child victims of family violence. What a thrilling example of what, in your words, “people working together on a project can achieve when it is COMMUNITY OWNED, COMMUNITY LED and COMMUNITY DRIVEN to address COMMUNITY IDENTIFIED issues!” Children, adults, and elders collaborating so that victims become empowered to heal, to speak, to conduct puppet theatre and other outreach activities, to influence the thoughts and actions of their own communities as well as mainstream decision-makers and service providers – stand as inspirations to us all!
We all can learn a great from you.
Your specialized, audience-specific educational activities for various groups of community members and various groups of professionals are likely to elicit some fear, defensiveness, and opposition among some of the people whose personal or professional or personal lives are challenged by what the children (and their puppets, and their adult helpers) are saying. In your current and future activities, it is likely that some participants in group sessions will interrupt a group member who is speaking, or will behave in other domineering ways.
A fundamental issue comes immediately to mind, about which my colleagues and I seek comments from others whenever we have or can create the opportunity to do so.
In your work as a teacher, how do you deal with the central question that faces all of us who are committed to ending violence and changing the world by working with people in non-violent ways: How shall we be directive in our work without being authoritarian or manipulative? To put it in other terms, in the intersection between theory and practice, if we want to help people develop a commitment to interacting in caring and collaborative ways rather than callous and authoritarian ways, how shall we structure our learning groups so that everyone understands our goals and no one is dominated, demeaned, or domesticated by our practice? What guidelines do you propose in your learning groups, for example, for dealing with a situation in which one member interrupts another? In dealing with an instance of domination by one group member over another, how shall we model our commitment to treat others as we would be treated?
Again, please accept my expression of appreciation for what you are doing and for sharing what you are doing. I shall be grateful for the opportunity to continue learning from you.
Warmly,
Herman M. Frankel, M.D.
Building Caring Families
www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/167
frankelh@earthlink.net
Dear Mr Frankel, Thank you for your comments and the opportunity to further share our experiences and learnings with the Bidja Clan project. The group realised that often people resist the knowledge that violence exists in all society, not just our Australian Aboriginal communities. The Bidja Clan puppets has provided the vehicle encouraging community members to talk about these too often silenced topics (family violence and the effects on children). The media of puppetry has provided the means to convey too often silenced messages in an informative, non-confrontational manner while reminding us that we have a moral obligation to uphold humanitarian rights and protect all community members. The Bidja Clan relies heavily on our Aboriginal strong 'sense of community' and the restoration of our community structures-with our Elders guiding the work to bring strength, respect and wisdom to our project and performances. A major consideration while developing scripts, was how the hard issues would be presented and the possible responses to challenges by audiences. In response, the puppets are 'child' characters with information and responses developmentally appropriate and therefore hard issues presented in a non-authoritarian manner. The use of Aboriginal puppets ensures the audience is captured immediately and positively engaged with the characters. To date we have not encountered any disruptive, negative responses or behaviour-with performances being positively received. Raising and talking about these issues is the start of change.
Exceptional innovative program, interesting to see the Bidja clan is based on the voice of our children and their perspective to being victims or witnesses of family violence in Indigenous contemporary Australian Society. With the ongoing high media profile of family violence in our Indigenous communities, it is welcoming to see such an innnovative program developed and delivered by community members which hopefully will aide adults to hear the voices of their children who are generally the unheard voiceless of our communities. Would love to see what they look like and do you have a video or any marketing material which we can present to our communities here in Queensland? Thanks and respect to the elders and for their mentoring of our young ones - keep up the great work and look forward to seeing your program expand through our communities nationally.
Dear Trudy Lee Heffron - thank you for your comment and question. We have also submitted photos of the Bidja Clan and their helpers, so you will get to see them when they are posted. We believe the Bidja Clan (voices of children) is a very effective way of raising the awareness of the effects of family violence on our kids. We have plans to develop a DVD, as part of our scaling up, for distribution to community. We are also planning to develop a website promoting the Bidja Clan and their work. Other supporting material currently being developed includes, activity book, recipe book, seed sticks, stickers and book marks. United in community spirit.
Dear Ms. Holmes:
Thank you for your inspiring description of the activities of the Bidja Clan in giving voice to voiceless child victims of family violence. What a thrilling example of what, in your words, “people working together on a project can achieve when it is COMMUNITY OWNED, COMMUNITY LED and COMMUNITY DRIVEN to address COMMUNITY IDENTIFIED issues!” Children, adults, and elders collaborating so that victims become empowered to heal, to speak, to conduct puppet theatre and other outreach activities, to influence the thoughts and actions of their own communities as well as mainstream decision-makers and service providers – stand as inspirations to us all!
We all can learn a great from you.
Your specialized, audience-specific educational activities for various groups of community members and various groups of professionals are likely to elicit some fear, defensiveness, and opposition among some of the people whose personal or professional or personal lives are challenged by what the children (and their puppets, and their adult helpers) are saying. In your current and future activities, it is likely that some participants in group sessions will interrupt a group member who is speaking, or will behave in other domineering ways.
A fundamental issue comes immediately to mind, about which my colleagues and I seek comments from others whenever we have or can create the opportunity to do so.
In your work as a teacher, how do you deal with the central question that faces all of us who are committed to ending violence and changing the world by working with people in non-violent ways: How shall we be directive in our work without being authoritarian or manipulative? To put it in other terms, in the intersection between theory and practice, if we want to help people develop a commitment to interacting in caring and collaborative ways rather than callous and authoritarian ways, how shall we structure our learning groups so that everyone understands our goals and no one is dominated, demeaned, or domesticated by our practice? What guidelines do you propose in your learning groups, for example, for dealing with a situation in which one member interrupts another? In dealing with an instance of domination by one group member over another, how shall we model our commitment to treat others as we would be treated?
Again, please accept my expression of appreciation for what you are doing and for sharing what you are doing. I shall be grateful for the opportunity to continue learning from you.
Warmly,
Herman M. Frankel, M.D.
Building Caring Families
www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/167
frankelh@earthlink.net
Dear Mr Frankel, Thank you for your comments and the opportunity to further share our experiences and learnings with the Bidja Clan project. The group realised that often people resist the knowledge that violence exists in all society, not just our Australian Aboriginal communities. The Bidja Clan puppets has provided the vehicle encouraging community members to talk about these too often silenced topics (family violence and the effects on children). The media of puppetry has provided the means to convey too often silenced messages in an informative, non-confrontational manner while reminding us that we have a moral obligation to uphold humanitarian rights and protect all community members. The Bidja Clan relies heavily on our Aboriginal strong 'sense of community' and the restoration of our community structures-with our Elders guiding the work to bring strength, respect and wisdom to our project and performances. A major consideration while developing scripts, was how the hard issues would be presented and the possible responses to challenges by audiences. In response, the puppets are 'child' characters with information and responses developmentally appropriate and therefore hard issues presented in a non-authoritarian manner. The use of Aboriginal puppets ensures the audience is captured immediately and positively engaged with the characters. To date we have not encountered any disruptive, negative responses or behaviour-with performances being positively received. Raising and talking about these issues is the start of change.
Exceptional innovative program, interesting to see the Bidja clan is based on the voice of our children and their perspective to being victims or witnesses of family violence in Indigenous contemporary Australian Society. With the ongoing high media profile of family violence in our Indigenous communities, it is welcoming to see such an innnovative program developed and delivered by community members which hopefully will aide adults to hear the voices of their children who are generally the unheard voiceless of our communities. Would love to see what they look like and do you have a video or any marketing material which we can present to our communities here in Queensland? Thanks and respect to the elders and for their mentoring of our young ones - keep up the great work and look forward to seeing your program expand through our communities nationally.
Dear Trudy Lee Heffron - thank you for your comment and question. We have also submitted photos of the Bidja Clan and their helpers, so you will get to see them when they are posted. We believe the Bidja Clan (voices of children) is a very effective way of raising the awareness of the effects of family violence on our kids. We have plans to develop a DVD, as part of our scaling up, for distribution to community. We are also planning to develop a website promoting the Bidja Clan and their work. Other supporting material currently being developed includes, activity book, recipe book, seed sticks, stickers and book marks. United in community spirit.