MERCURY SERIES: MAKING A DIFFERENCE
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A University of Wollongong Bachelor of Performance student will spend her mid-year break helping children in a small community in Ecuador experience the joy of theatre.
Gretchen Habermann, a member of the National Youth Theatre Company (NYTC), will travel to Banos, a tourist town high in the Ecuadorian Andes, with NYTC regional co-ordinator Paula Rundell-Gordon and fellow NYTC member Julia Halsey.
Children's arts and literacy charity Fundacion Arte del Mundo offers free after-school programs for the children of Banos but needs a theatre to provide better services.
Once a theatre is built, Ms Habermann will help fit it out for lighting and curtains and run workshops to help the children of Banos learn to share their stories through drama. Illawarra residents can assist by sponsoring a brick for the theatre's construction.
Ms Habermann, 20, of Keiraville, said she knew little about Ecuador but had been reading up about it and was trying to learn some of the language.
She said Ms Rundell-Gordon would be a great help as she had travelled extensively in South America.
"It is just really exciting to be able to go over there and do something like this, especially while I am studying," she said.
"I have always been interested in doing aid work and Paula always shaped my awareness of the world ... and how some people don't get to go to school every day and don't have a theatre or somewhere they can go and watch a movie.
"I think it is really important for people in a community like Banos who have all these stories to tell but no medium to do it. To accomplish something like that is going to be amazing."
Ms Rundell-Gordon said it would be a great learning opportunity. "As a teacher, I know the importance of the arts in helping build communities like Banos," she said.
"The arts helps to improve literacy, enables people to tell their stories and share stories with each other, and importantly, this in turn helps generate employment in a poor country, particularly one so dependent on tourism for survival."
The NYTC Foundation was created to introduce the arts to young people and nurture performance skills.
NYTC Foundation chair Lindsay Farris said Ms Rundell-Gordon was a great teacher with extensive experience and knowledge and that Ms Habermann had developed skills through NYTC workshops that would enable her to teach the children in Banos drama and performance skills.
Donations for the construction of the theatre are welcome. Illawarra residents can buy a brick for $25 or contribute towards the cost of lights, curtains and costumes.
Further information at www.nytc.com.au.
