Theatre is not just for entertainment, rather it is a great platform to present the social issues and voice the feelings and demands of the oppressed and disadvantaged people. Children have a natural attraction towards performing arts, particularly dancing and acting. However, their exposure to live theatre experience is very limited due to their social and economic backgrounds. Some of the organizations working with children use street plays as an awareness tool; however, introduction to the commercial theatre setup is often beyond their reach. This year, ARC (Action for the Rights of the Children) in association with New Vision and terre des hommes Germany organized a special theatre experience for children from various communities in Pune during the child rights week. The venue was Jyotsna Bhole Auditorium run by Maharashtra Cultural Center, Pune. More than 125 children and youth participated in this day-long activity. Two plays were performed by trained artists - Cherry Eke Cherry and Pakka Limbu Timbu. The first play spoke about importance of hard work and patience for achieving desired goals, while the other portrayed the concurrent issues of addiction to mobile games and peer pressure among children and adolescents. The audience could relate to the characters and dialogues, which was visible through their live response in terms of claps and laughter and even silence during certain scenes. The children were excited to see the lights, microphones, sound systems, and other technical aspects of theatre. They asked questions to the system operators and some of them also expressed their interest in joining the theatre group as an artist. Children and youth in the audience got a chance to perform on the stage during the second half, where songs and street plays were performed. The performances touched upon a variety of topics including child rights, environment, de-addiction, gender equality, and education. This was a good opportunity for children to enjoy and learn with fun.
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