This week began and ended on the motorway; and most of it I spent asking people for money. I drove up to Aberdeen from London to run a day-long script-writing workshop with a group of Syrians.
Kaleidoscope is radio drama writing and acting project for Syrians in Britain, Europe and the Middle East. So far we’ve run workshops in Aberdeen and Heidelberg and we’re heading towards another two-week workshop in Aberdeen. But we’ve just been told there’s a 40 per cent hole in the budget, which needs to be plugged by July 31, the start date.
Most of the Syrians in Aberdeen have been in Britain for more than a year, part of the thousands Scotland has taken in. Our participants are working under the Syrian writer, Mohammad Abou Laban, who Skypes in from Germany today. At the end of July, he is going to fly in and, for two weeks, direct them in the play they’ve written with him. We are recording it in Arabic and English for broadcast.
