The Power of Performance: Community Legal Education Through Theatre

Theatre performance can be a highly effective way to deliver legal information to young people from culturally and racially marginalised communities.

Some of the benefits of using theatre performance methods to communicate complex legal information include: 

• Engaging and interactive: Theatre can capture young people's attention and make them more active participants in the learning process.
• Accessible: Theatre can be used to communicate complex legal information in a way that is easy to understand, even for those who do not speak English as their first language.
• Culturally sensitive: Theatre can be used to create culturally sensitive performances that resonate with young people from CARM communities.

Join us for our Enhancing Engagement webinar, How to Make Legal Information More Engaging and Accessible through interactive performance methods, on Wednesday, 13th December 2023 at 10.00am. 

In this webinar, Kirsten Young and Engy Abdelsalam from Peninsula CLC share their insights from developing and presenting ‘This is not who I want to be’ – a show covering family violence issues which particularly affect young people in their area. The project involved 14 theatre performances in 4 schools, reaching over 335 students throughout 2022. It was funded by a Victoria Law Foundation Community Legal Grant

During this webinar, you will learn:

• How to determine if a cohort of young people may benefit from a story telling through theatre performance approach rather than a traditional CLE method
• How to best approach co-designing an educative theatre performance for young people
• About the application of the Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed approach
  
• About the benefits and challenges of using theatre performance methods to communicate complex legal information.

This webinar is part of Enhancing Access Webinars series (previously called Better Information Webinar series) hosted by the Victoria Law Foundation. These webinars aim to equip you with the skills to produce more accessible legal information, which empowers more people to understand and engage with the law, resulting in better justice for all.

We hope to see you there!

Presenters - 

Engy Abdelsalam is a Lawyer at Peninsula Community Legal Centre responsible for designing and delivering innovative projects to provide legal information to culturally and linguistically diverse communities. She provides legal assistance and advice to clients on Civil, Criminal, and Migration matters. She also is currently running a project to provide legal information and support to CALD young people on family violence and forced marriage.

Kirsten Young is the Community Engagement, Education and Legal Policy Officer at Peninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC). She oversees the development and delivery of community legal education, community development projects, and policy and law reform initiatives. She returned to the community legal sector after working for two decades with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in various countries around the world.