'Milestones' now available to watch on our website!
A year ago today, RAT returned to the Bloomsbury Theatre Studio to present Milestones: a semi-verbatim play reflecting the experiences of families with children under 5 years old living in temporary accommodation. It was the first stage of our ongoing collaboration with CHAMPIONS, a national research project on the subject.
(Where does the time go...?!)
The show was attended by researchers, politicians, broadcasters, charity leaders, and the few members of the public who managed to snatch the final tickets up in time.
The post-show panel discussion was chaired by the project's Co-Investigator Dr Nadzeya Svirydzenka, and featured other Co-Investigator Prof Monica Lakhanpaul, MP Siobhain McDonagh, BBC News Social Affairs Correspondent Michael Buchanan, Sam Pratt from the Shared Health Foundation and Parent/Lived Experiences Expert Kadie. The observations made led to the creation of a petition to the APPG for Households in Temporary Accommodation, to update the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Councils, to guarantee a cot for every family in temporary accommodation with a child under the age of 2.
In February this year, that petition was successful.
It was a massive achievement and has gone down as one of RAT's proudest moments, showing how experiences shared in an auditorium spill out and positively affect the world around us.
And now, on the anniversary of the one-off performance, we are sharing the video of the full play on our website for everyone to enjoy, reflect on, be seen by, and be inspired that together we can make change happen.
It is precious to us that we are able to make this available to watch for free, so that the people with whom the stories most resonate will not face barriers to seeing it. However, if you would have been able to pay for a ticket, we would be so grateful to receive a donation in lieu. We rely on your generosity to keep doing the work we do year round to empower survivors, reach new people with trauma-conscious practice, come across the stories that need to be told, and find the ways to tell them in the ways that will make the most impact.
We continue to work with CHAMPIONS and to see history being made. Currently, we are writing a paper for the Theatre About Science conference team for whom we presented extracts from the play in Portugal last year, reflecting on how the theatre-making process drew out findings from the research that had not been foregrounded before; delivering pre-interview workshops for migrant and asylum-seeking mothers from Kurdish- and Arabic-speaking countries who are living in UK temporary accommodation with young children, to frame the questions they will be asked about their circumstances and conditions in optimistic, forward-looking and hopeful ways and thereby avoid retraumatisation; all while preparing to spend a month in Venice as fellows at the Venice Biennale researching a short performance piece exploring how to present a child's perspective on displacement.
Keep following our progress on this and more through our mailing list. For now - enjoy the show!
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