With the transfer of knowledge and skills from developed European organisations that have been active for several decades, we planned to: - to create a strong social cultural institution bringing together interdisciplinary artists and activists, which will The main goal was to create a strong cultural institution bringing together interdisciplinary artists and activists, which would be a space for the development of original projects related to the current of social art, art with the community, - strengthen real participatory mechanisms, involving participants in workshops and audiences of performances, participants in urban activities, communities in the co-creation of events and the place where SPT operates, - build a network of international contacts - to build permanent cooperation on a range of European projects, - develop the range of activities offered at the Association's premises, - make our Association a bold and visible place for the movement of people, ideas, tools, - to develop skills and ways of working and share them with cultural institutions, NGOs and other creative collectives operating in Warsaw and all over Poland, - build a strong complementary team (the team and its resources - knowledge, skills, contacts and ideas are the basis of a well-functioning place).
For more than 8 years, the Theatre Pedagogues' Society (SPT) has had a creative collective called Laboratory of Theatre and Society (LTS) implementing EDUCATIONAL-TEATRAL-PARTICIPATION activities. At the time of writing the grant application we are currently reporting on we saw the following challenges facing our local society: - low levels of social empathy, confinement to narrow circles (so-called bubbles). - the inability to have an open social dialogue leading to the radicalisation of views not only in Poland, but throughout Europe. In the European public sphere as in our home backyard, there was more and more talk of divisions, disconnections and closure (e.g. Brexit, migration policy challenges) instead of establishing bonds and relationships based on open, deep communication and an attempt to understand differences and conflicts. Therefore, we saw the need to strengthen and develop the Social Theatre Laboratory team and the Association of Theatre Educators in order to work with a variety of methods and thus reach more and more new groups and individuals. We were interested in how similar challenges to ours are dealt with by organisations and creative groups in other parts of Europe.