The RIGHTS HERE! Project

A project conceived in collaboration between Teesri Duniya Theatre, members of the Equality Committe of the Quebec Division of the Canadian Bar Association, the Park Extension Youth Organization (PEYO), the Theatre and Development program at Concordia University, and the Centre for Social Action in Bangalore, India.

“People learn from their own narratives to conceptualize human rights and work towards their fulfillment. Only then can we become agents of change.” ---- Shulamith Koenig, a world leader in Human Rights Education as a community-based movement.

Rights Here! the most recent project in the “Untold Stories” series of community-engaged theatrical productions from Teesri Duniya Theatre, focuses on youth, cultural diversity, and Human Rights education and activism. The project brings together professional and emerging artists, law students and lawyers, educators and students studying theatre for social change, social service organizations and youth participants from the Park Extension area of Montreal. With 40% of its population made up of communities of color from South Asian, African and Middle Eastern descent, “Park Ex” is one of our city’s most culturally diverse neighbourhoods, and home to a large number of new Canadians.

Rights Here! will take place in two interdependent phases: Phase 1: (In India) The emerging and professional artists on our creative team, including Indo-Canadian actors, as well as the law and theatre students, will undertake three weeks of hands-on training in Indian street theatre provided by the Centre for Social Action in Bangalore, India. In total 15 members of our project will partake in this training.

Phase 2: (in Montreal) Through a subsequent creative investigation into the local Park Ex reality, the project will address, in aesthetic form and in collaboration with the youth from Park Ex, questions of local human rights realizations and violations in a comparative international context: the ideals vs. the realities of universal human rights. A show will be created and presented to the public as well tour to traditional as well as non-traditional settings in various communities. As a form of creative interculturalism, the Rights Here! project takes an intersectorial approach to mobilizing partnership resources from arts and social service funders, universities, individuals, foundations, and the private sector. The project brings together artists, young people, and local community organizations to create an aesthetically and emotionally powerful performance designed to assist young people, their parents, and their community to understand human rights as a living and empowering experience, rather than a set of legal instruments and norms: a culture to which they can have access and insert their presence and their voices.