Today marked a reunion with the amazing Original Play team! Fred Donaldson, Noraini Mahmood, Soumaya Al Azem, and myself. The four of us had not met all together in Lebanon since my last trip to Beirut in 2014. The team had grown since and I was about to meet the rest over breakfast in our hotel restaurant. Ingrid, Sonia, Uwe, and Armin! The team was multi-culturally rich ( Germany, Austria, Sweden/USA, Bahrain/Singapore, Canada/Dubai). I would get to know the new participants and share some profound moments with all, over the next few days.
You are probably thinking what is this Original Play? What is she talking about?! I can start by telling you that is not something you can describe in words but can only experience first hand. The best I can do here is to describe it’s purpose.
The purpose of Original Play is to replace aggression with gentleness, isolation with connection, confusion with clarity, war with peace, and fear with love.
The founder of Original Play is the world renown play specialist Dr. Fred Donaldson, a very inspiring individual who has dedicated his life’s work to changing patterns of fear and aggression around the world . He has taken this work beyond academia, cultural boundaries, and language. Fred is also a skillful martial artist and uses martial art principles in his work with refugee children, street kids, gangsters, prison-inmates, children with special needs, and wild animals . Yes, you heard me! He has practiced Original Play with wolves, horses, bears, lions, and dolphins.
I will leave the details of his story for you to find out, either by attending one of his introductory lectures, signing up for a weekend workshop, looking him up on google, or by having a chat with me. I have had the privilege of following Fred to several destinations as an apprentice in Original Play and have watched him do his magic in Bahrain, Poland, and Lebanon to name a few. This time I come from Dubai to spend 5 days with him and the team in Lebanon where we will spend our days mostly playing and interacting with refugee children and their families. The next few blog posts will document each of the five unforgettable days so please stay posted!
Oct 6.2016
After a hotel breakfast, the eight of us along with the two drivers headed towards Tripoli to the psychological center for trauma relief which hosts Syrian refugee children and their mothers (as most of the fathers have either been imprisoned or tortured to death).
These two young teenagers with their niece told us of their struggle to survive in a dangerous area in Tripoli, at risk of being harassed or raped, the 16 year old was forced to quit working at an ice-cream shop. After both the dad and brother were kidnapped and killed in Syria, the remaining family of four women fled to Lebanon. The girls now out of school and desperate to make ends meet. A 14 year old, a 16 year old, a 23 year old (not in the picture), a toddler, and the mother (not in picture). The oldest one, abandoned by a new husband after giving birth, works a 12 hour job as a hairdresser in Beirut and leaves her toddler with her teenage sisters. Her salary is just enough to cover the rent for the small room they all stay in. Her salary does not cover food or transport for the long journey from Tripoli to Beirut and back. Donations collected by one of our team members would help move them to a better area and fund their education for a year.
At the center we played with 2 groups of children in a small classroom. Afterwards we headed towards 2 orphanages. I was assigned the role of translator since I was Arabic speaking. I introduced the team, explained the reason behind our visit, and the rules of Original Play. At the end of the Original Play session I always asked/translated to the children the same 3 questions and got the same answers.
1. When we played with you did we hit you? No
2. Did we kick you? No
3. Did we hurt you? No
That is what real play is. It is when everyone plays together safely.There is no winner or loser. People can be older or younger than us, parents or siblings, or people from different countries. Yet, we can all play together safely without any body getting hurt. Anything else is not play and we must say stop it! This is not play, I will not participate.
I need to stress that this is incredibly important for kids who have experienced trauma and hardship, which in turn breeds hopelessness, frustration, and subsequent aggression. When families are in survival mode the fight or flight response is activated – you either become aggressor or victim, there is no in between. We see this manifest in many circumstances such as slums, street gangs, …..and refugee camps.
Before continuing our journey we stopped in the old market in Tripoli for lunch in an old Lebanese restaurant and some soap shopping which Tripoli is famous for.
At one of the orphanages. After laying out the mats, we played with 5 groups of children, starting with youngest and most gentle (often but not always the case). While playing with one of the last groups of older more aggressive males, 3 boys jumped on one of my male colleagues’ back and while trying to get one of them off I was pushed hard and fell. No harm done, but that day I learned that I could get hurt doing this and needed to be okay with that. I also learned a lesson in leading the play, when one of the boys had a choking grip on a colleague and it was my responsibility to know when to end the session. I re-learned the importance of clarity with my team, the children, and the adults watching on the side-lines.
We concluded our play with a group of strong and energetic girls. There was no shyness, timidity, or reservation from these young ladies. They did not care about age or gender, they gave a fearless 100 % to the whole team.
Before leaving, the youth surprised us with a musical performance. Many had bonded with some of the adults they had played with. I was asked to translate: “can you come back tomorrow?”, “Can I have picture with you?”, and “I love you”. We played with more than a 100 children that day.
Rawan
reflectionsofarecreationaltherapist.com 