LocationsIn Haiti, a street theatre troupe offers children displaced by violence an artistic interlude
Shouting for peace
August 9, 2024
A theatre troupe in Haiti gives children displaced by violence a space to just be kids.
Photo: BIT-Haïti/Carlin Trézil
For Juliana St. Vil and her friends, shouting is a form of therapy. These students enrolled in a drama school in Haiti have chosen this art form as an escape.
Every afternoon, the children, eager to get started, enter the rehearsal room barefoot to perform a sketch that they will present to the public at the end of the two-week workshop. The play tells the story of life in a displaced persons camp in Haiti.
“They need to get away from the camp environment, to come together and have fun,” says Eliézer Guerisme, programme director of the Théâtre national d'Haïti.
In Haiti, more than a million people are struggling to rebuild their lives in a country whose future remains uncertain. The threat of gang violence, which exploded after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, is constant.
Nearly 5 million Haitians – almost half the population – are facing acute hunger, more than 578,000 have been forced to leave their homes, and basic supplies have become scarce as the main seaport and international airport have been closed for months.
Children are particularly hard hit by the crisis that has engulfed the country. According to UNICEF, more than 300,000 children were internally displaced as of July, an increase of 60 percent since March.
“Children can breathe here.”- Eliézer Guerisme, Programme Director, Théâtre national d'Haïti
Juliana has spent most of her 12 years in Carrefour-Feuilles, in the south of Port-au-Prince. This neighbourhood had been rebuilt after the devastating earthquake in 2010 and was home to working class families and those who had left the rural countryside.
One day in August 2023, following an attack, Juliana, her little sister, her mother and her mother’s partner fled the neighbourhood, taking with them only their birth certificates, their voting cards and very few personal belongings.
The family settled in a school that had been turned into a shelter. Today, they sleep on the concrete floor of an overcrowded classroom.
“When we lived in our house, we were free, we had a good life,” recalls Baby Gustave, Juliana's mother. “Here in the shelter, we can't even sleep. The insects bite us.”
At the dawn of her adolescence, Juliana has already been through a lot. Gang violence took her father away from her when he was shot dead on his way home from a day's work in a factory. She misses her old home and school, especially maths lessons.
“I slip into the skin of my character,” says Juliana. To get to her drama lessons, she travels by motorbike. When she arrives, she enjoys a free meal.
Juliana is one of the main actors in the play. In one scene she plays a mother who asks permission to live in a shelter with her son, played by a young boy who, although he pretends to cry, often ends up bursting into laughter. In another scene, she plays a peacemaker, finding a solution for children who are arguing because they want to play different games in a crowded camp.
Finally, in the last scene, she reveals her name and her true dream: to become a policewoman.
Organized by the street theatre troupe Brigade d’intervention théâtrale (Theatrical Intervention Brigade or BIT-Haïti), the workshop is supported by UNDP and the UN Peacebuilding Fund and implemented by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights through a local cultural organization called Tamise.
Since April, 41 cultural associations and artists from several of the country’s departments have been carrying out activities to raise awareness of peace and respect for human rights, in collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Culture and Communication. At the same time, the initiative is helping to implement a national communication campaign aiming to reduce community violence.
"I slip into the skin of my character."
- Juliana St. Vil
Children can breathe here,” says Eliézer Guerisme, the programme director.
Performance art gives young people the opportunity to channel and release emotions linked to violence.
“On the first day, the children were shy. They didn’t speak very loudly and didn’t want to say what they were feeling,” workshop assistant Stéphanie François says. “But by the second day, they had come to have fun, to talk, to perform and to live. They wanted to escape from their reality of displacement.”
In a country where 54 percent of the population is under 25, Haiti's young people represent a real asset and the hope of an entire nation. By investing in and caring for its young people, Haiti will take a giant step towards long-term recovery and resilience.
Photos: BIT-Haïti/Carlin Trézil
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