SOCIODRAMA AS A PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH TOOL IN SELF-ORGANIZING COMMUNITIES
Workshop by the School of Public Life Foundation
PRESENTERS: ORSOLYA FÓTI – ESZTER PADOS – FLÓRA BAUER – ZÓRA MOLNÁR
Sociodrama and power
DATE AND TIME: 28th of June, Friday 9:00-12:00
CONFERENCE TOPIC: Local Community Program
TYPE: Workshop
LOCATION: Aurora Community Centre, 1084 Budapest, 11 Str Aurora
MAPS: link
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 10
TAGS: Local Communities, June28 Morning
ABSTRACT:
The School of Public Life (KIA) is a community education and knowledge center, as well as a movement support institution, whose goal is to make the knowledge and skills necessary for self-organization accessible to everyone. KIA supports movement and civil organizations in operating more effectively through training and knowledge transfer. The organization’s core values are diversity, social justice, critical thinking, democratic participation, and solidarity.
The School of Public Life regularly conducts participatory action research programs and training sessions. Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a special approach whereby people involved in a topic investigate the reality around them in order to understand and then change it. The School of Public Life Foundation has been working with participatory action research since 2015, including conducting its own research projects and organizing regular training and workshops on the topic.
We aim to involve a total of 20 participants (10 from Roma organisations associated with the School of Public Life and 10 from the conference participants).
We consider the sociodrama method to be an ideal tool to reflect with the group members on the current public issues that are especially relevant to the Roma community. These topics can then serve as a starting point for participatory action research.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:
Orsolya Fóti has been working in various participatory settings for a number of years, involving communities and service users in activities that drive social and organisational change. She previously worked with the Participatory Action Research Forum (PARFORUM) in Hungary, participating in art-based participatory action research projects. Additionally, she was a member of the coordinating team for the PERFORMERS International Sociodrama Project. Currently, she works at a local authority in the UK, developing and managing participatory projects to ensure that the voices of those with lived experience are heard, acted upon, and embedded in all decision-making processes.
Eszter Pados is a psychopedagogist, criminologist psychodrama leader, sociodrama leader, and trainer. She has worked for over a decade with children and young people affected by trauma, delinquency and substance abuse.
She is a member of the LOC of the 8th International Sociodrama Conference.
Eszter is member of several professional teams working with sociodrama. She is a co-founder of the Scope Working Group within the Hungarian Psychodrama Association, which uses the sociodrama method in educational and social institutions working with children and profesionals.
She is a member of the HeartSounds Community Theatre Company, which aims to raise awareness of the oppression, discrimination and institutional violence that particularly affects women in the care system.
From 2017 to 2022, Eszter was the coordinator of the PERFORMERS international sociodrama project at a youth detention center. Her editorial contributions include co-editing the books “Playing for the Future: Sociodrama in Juvenile Detention Centers” and “Expanding Reality: The Method of Sociodrama.”
She is working on participatory action research and qualitative psychology during her doctoral studies at Eotvos Loránd University.
Flóra Bauer
I’ve been working with groups for 15 years, starting with small children in summer camps, then the young adult volunteers, sometimes teachers, etc. Now, working at the School of Public Life, an activist school in Hungary, I am involved in the development of our training repertoire, I design new courses and run some of them, keep in touch with our trainers’ community and coordinate methodological developments.
My interest in dramatic tools emerged a couple of years ago, and since then I finished a course on drama pedagogy, attended several thematic workshops and had the opportunity to learn about sociodrama. I’m also part of an improv group, preparing for our first performance.
Zóra Molnár coordinates participatory action research projects and related training and workshops at the School of Public Life. This approach is important to her because it not only enables knowledge production, but also helps people to learn to stand up for themselves even if they previously thought they could not.
