Catharsis - The term itself comes from the Greek katharsis meaning "purification" or "cleansing." (Cherry. 2021).
"what’s important in this process is catharsis that leads to some sort of restoration or renewal. What we want is to bring about some form of positive change to our lives."
The activity:
We will have 5
breakout rooms (depending on number of participants). There are 5 characters:
the victim, perpetrator, a family member, a neighbour and maybe a policeman or
a doctor.
Each group will be assigned a character and then they will
be writing a story for that character. I have questions prepared like:
-who is this?
- what is their background?
- what is their current situation? What happened?
- what is the solution in their mind?
In writing the story of the character, the idea is that participants tell a story/write from their personal experience.
Once the story is written, they will present in a creative
way. Like a short drama, poem, etc.
(Everyone’s video off except those who are ‘on stage’.)
References:
Cherry, K. 2021. The Role of Catharsis in Psychology. Dotdash.
17-03-2021, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-catharsis-2794968.
The session ended with a breathing relaxation exercise and a discussion of what resources were available should participants need any counselling.
The impact of the role play was confirmed by some participants referring to this session as one of their highlights in the project as it made them think about the issues around gender-based violence from all perspectives.
Selby of South Roots International joins in the discussion from Namibia where he is working with a community.
Clifton Strength finder personality test
“A test to discover what you naturally do best and to learn
how to develop your greatest strengths into talents”.
Strength - the ability to consistently produce a
nearly perfect positive outcome in a specific task.
Knowledge - what you know.
Skill - developed ability to move through the
fundamental steps of a task.
Talents - our natural abilities uniquely received at
birth a natural way of thinking, feeling, behaving.
Your strength is a combination of knowledge, skill and
talent.
A weakness in knowledge and skill can be managed with
relative ease, but a gap in talent is more of a challenge.
There are zillions of talents, which means it is impossible
to name them all. We therefore put these
talents into themes.
34 themes
Activator, Achiever, Arranger, Analytical, Adaptability
Belief
Command, Communication, Context, Connectedness, Competition,
Consistency
Discipline, Developer, Deliberative
Empathy
Focus, Futuristic
Harmony
Ideation, Individualistic, Includer, Input, Intellection
Learner
Maximiser
Positivity
Responsibility, relator, restorative
Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic
Winning other over (WOO)
Shanette Martin then introduced a hypothetical situation for the participants to develop in role play. The team was at the beach and the driver had lost the keys to the bus between leaving the bus and settling on the beach. The participants were divided into zoom groups and each group role played how they would react under these circumstances. When the groups all returned into the main online room their reactions to the lost bus keys was analysed according to personality strengths. Shanette emphasised how important it was for their to be a mixture of people with different personality strengths to address the situation.
The Power of Museums – United Kingdom
Skills transference workshop by Natalie Crompton (Touchstones Indra) on 5 February (partially funded by National Arts Council SA) 
written by Luyanda Makoba-Hadebe, CCMS, UKZN
Natalie Crompton from Touchstones
Rochdale (Indra) delivered a thought-provoking workshop that examined the power
of a museum and how that can influence ideas of knowledge and culture. ARROWSA
South to North arts, culture, and heritage for social change (SAUKINIDA) project
transference skills workshop. Natalie is an Engagement Specialist working in
both Heritage and Youth Theatre settings and a Doctoral Candidate at the
University of Salford. The title for Natalie's workshop was: The Power of
Museums,
A museum is a collection of objects or
items of significance that are identified as necessary. It plays an integral role in
preserving the history of society. Their exhibits tell us stories about "how
our nations, our communities, and our cultures came to be, and without them,
those stories could be forgotten”
Natalie’s workshop skilfully dug into why it is essential to understand
that museum exhibits are not without their cultural and societal blind spots. The
existence of a museum exhibit existence creates accepted knowledge. This leads
to creating what is acceptable as being relevant and vital. Probing questions
in the workshop were used to that showed how important the museum exhibition's
curator is. The questions she asked were:
·
Has a museum ever had an impact on you?
·
Who decides what goes into the museum?
·
What would you have in your museum?
Rianna of Gorsehill Studios and a participant engaging in the workshop
These questions then become who curates the exhibits and to whom
these items are essential. When creating a museum exhibition, the curator makes
decisions regarding which objects to choose for display. Natalie used a great
analogy to show how important a curator is when she asked the group to curate a
biscuit museum. This question's discussion led to everyone agreeing that they
might leave out oatmeal biscuits as they do not like how they taste. This is
the personal blind spot that can lead to a biscuit that could otherwise be particularly
important not being included in the exhibition.
Ayanda of Bergtheil Museum, eThekwini Local History Museums shares her experience
The workshop concluded with showing why there is a need for diverse
curators with a wider perspective will make sure decisions that are made about
what is included as 'knowledge' on a topic are authentic and informed. There is a need to understand why and how to
curate museums in the way that we do.
