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Undesirable Elements: Secret Survivors, the latest installment from the Ping Chong and Co. theater company, is a stunning exploration of childhood sexual abuse and its lifelong effects. Written and directed by Ping Chong & Co.ʼs Associate Director, Sara Zatz, it depicts the personal experiences of five child sexual abuse survivors who share their stories in their entirety for the first time. In a question-and-answer session following a reading of this work in New York City in May, Project Coordinator and creator Amita Swadhin explained that, although sexual abuse is an epidemic problem in the US, most mass media representations of abuse deal with the issue at a safely fictional remove. Amita wanted to bring the intensity, diversity and prevalence of the problem directly to audiences while creating a space for other survivors to share their stories.

Secret Survivors, then, is a theatrical performance about sexual abuse told by the survivors themselves. A childrenʼs song sets the stage, transporting the audience back to their own playground years. As childhood permeates this adult theater, the long talons of abuse are slowly revealed. Like a quilt, the monologue fragments are stitched together across the stage, cuttings of personal history sewn together by the chorus and the poignant music of one of the survivors.

A woman tells about the romance of her parents, both immigrants from India, in Ohio, hoping to build upon their dreams with their two daughters. At age four, the father would become her abuser. Her mother dismissed her story. The little girl blocked the abuse by creating her own world outside her home. Though she has struggled through it all, she excelled in her education. She shares, "I carry with me only one physical scar. Here on my lip, where he once bit me."

Another shares, "I will never have any children." Her well-to-do parents loved her, but their careers always demanded their full attention. Not until her childcare provider was arrested did they recognize the behavioral changes that accompanied her enrollment in the town daycare. Years of therapy could not unleash her deep-seated memories.

One man explains how he devoted his life to social justice issues because of his loving familyʼs influence. Later in life he realized that he was losing jobs and friends because of his promiscuity with women. Exerting his masculinity, the way society showed him, was his own form of resistance. This is how he responded to the abuse he endured from a friend of the older son of his babysitter. He kept this a secret until a friend told him about her rape by an older boyfriend.

Next, a survivor shares how she found acceptance of her adopted family in Queens by making everyone laugh. Her older adopted brother abused her almost immediately upon her arrival to her new home. She found a voice in her music and poetry. Her life changed after being asked to become a part of an artistsʼ collective. This is how she finally healed. Midway through the performance, she sings a song to her adoptive mother, who had refused to confront the abuse by her birth son. The experience is gut-wrenching for the audience.

It is hard to describe the cumulative power of these stories. They thread through the surrounding contexts of structural violence, economic strata, racial tensions, sexual orientation and the intersections of the storytellersʼ numerous identities. In fact, it inevitably speaks to the audienceʼs numerous identities. Specific moments awake a different part of oneself - the instincts of a mother, a sister, a member of a family, the duty of a public servant, the experiences of a woman or person of color, the vulnerability and resilience of a child, the role of a friend, a teacher, a social worker. One will find themselves in deep reflection about broken systems and structures just as much as remember oneʼs own closeness to sexual abuse or its prospects.

The stories serve as a reminder that child abuse can happen to anyone. One will walk away feeling like taking action so that it does NOT happen to another child. Yet one is struck, as the narratives pass, by an overwhelming truth. Despite the early trauma, despite the long and bitter influence these episodes of abuse can inflict on its victims, these survivors who are sharing before you have survived, have mastered the forces of destruction that might have overcome them, are, in the very moment of the performance, embodying hope, asserting with each utterance their liberation from the experiences that might have chained them.

Many artistic attempts to scale the cliffs of abuse, like other social justice motivated work, can feel like the art has taken a back seat to the message. This is not the case in Secret Survivors, partly because it falls under the Undesirable Elements umbrella of projects, which has since 1992 put on productions that deal with a wide range of oral histories. Secret Survivors has taken full advantage of the template developed in the Undesirable Elements series. Each survivor tells his or her own story in a series of linked monologues, and is bolstered in his or her telling by the choral participation of fellow actors. The choral element, a throwback to the Greek dramas, is particularly effective in at once highlighting these moments of high trauma even as it reveals the community of support these survivors have later carved out for themselves.

The power of an open conversation about such a taboo topic can often feel like a blow to the stomach. But, this unique performance has many layers. Though at times it leaves you hopeless, each narrative evokes a variety of feelings and emotions, for these survivors are real. They candidly share their multiple identities by voicing small vignettes of their lifetime journeys. "What is justice?" they ask -- each one gives their definition. The audience is left to ponder on this question too; days, even months after experiencing the performance.
Secret Survivors is a wake-up call about an issue that is too often kept hidden, a cancerous monster that needs to be addressed. It is a remarkable work that must be experienced by everyone, because 1 in 4 female-bodied and 1 in 6 male-bodied people are currently victimized. It is an epidemic problem that survivor Amita Swadhin is committed to solving. The performance is only the beginning of what has turned into her life-long journey.

For more information on Secret Survivors, visit www.secretsurvivors.org.

A reflection on Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea, and CAI.

by Lizzie Hetzer

With a meek, modest, humble nature, Greg Mortenson radiates with a passion for education that bubbles just below the surface. Perhaps it's this mild and humble manner that allows Mortenson to so gently observe and respect the communities with which he has worked.

Mortenson's Central Asia Institute has the unique posture of working with communities to build ideal schools where much of the educational philosophy can be imagined, rather than fitted within an existing bureaucratic structure. While Mortenson could have taken any approach to education, CAI appears to have done the opposite of what is happening in the U.S. As hyper-standardization and rigid structure appear to be at the forefront of "education reform" in the States, Mortenson's organization builds community-owned schools in which communities have actual decision-making power, where spending is transparent. There is a contract with communities in which they decide how the schools will be governed.

Mortenson knows about the importance of listening. Asking: What are your community's priorities? Acknowledging the lived expertise of community members. While we privilege certain types of education and expression--for example written expression--these don't define education, knowledge, or intelligence. The ability to "read the world" can be just as powerful. Community members are experts in their lived experiences and can contribute to prioritizing and planning.

Educational theorist Paulo Freire pushes towards a theory of "dialogical action" when working with communities. He warns against falling prey to "cultural invasion" in which development workers and professionals come to solve all problems and develop solutions on their own. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he argues that often times, "professional" or "educated" individuals "do not listen to the people, but instead plan to teach them how to 'cast off the laziness which creates underdevelopment.' To these professionals, it seems absurd to consider the necessity of respecting the 'view of the world' held by the people." In order to be with communities rather than over or inside, we must recognize the importance of dialogue (sharing and listening) and appreciating the expertise of all participants in the process.

Mortenson made it clear that he believes communities are capability of running schools (tell this to the NYC Department of Ed!)

CAI schools are formed with community input that includes a focus on storytelling, culture, and languages. Storytelling can be a major stronghold within a community--in sharing and shaping history. In Local Acts, Jan Cohen Cruz, an Associate Professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and community-based artist, comments, "storytelling as a traditional form of education passes on values, practices, experience, and knowledge that affirm the collective identity of the group." Education and schooling have the potential to distance students and participants from their communities or allow them to form connections with the community, explore the community's history, and recognize the beauty and struggle that lies within. Often, schooling drives students to leave the community if we place a negative focus on the community. The only desirable possibility is to escape. It's important to recognize education's potential to build up communities and preserve and share their important histories.

Mortenson describes education as an act of engagement and experience. He references the need to smell, taste, touch, and feel. Theater of the Oppressed author, practitioner and theorist Augusto Boal translated Freire's popular education theories into participatory and theatrical games and exercises. Through participatory techniques, Boal challenges us to truly listen to what we hear, feel what we touch, and see what we are looking at. With the development of these senses, we can pursue Freire's concept of literacy, not only learning to read words, but to read the world through sensory experience and emotion. And finally, by reading and recognizing the world, we are called to challenge, transform and re-name it.

When we hear Greg Mortenson's story, his quest to build schools to promote peace, we are touched. Why can't education be like this in the States? Do we think we are too advanced for an education that promotes community and peace? How can we re-imagine education?

by Lizzie Hetzer

Trabian's post got me thinking about how change happens and why we do it. Social entreprenuership is neither a motivation, a means, nor an end.

I began to make some connections in a book called "Mime Spoke Here" by Tony Montanaro - one of the most celebrated mimes. Yes, it is a book about mime, and yes, it does connect to social change. 

Premise: Feeling the "tug"

The key to being a good mime (or an actor) is the understanding of the premise of our actions in everyday life. Yes, it's the actor's annoying question: "What's my motivation?" Motivation and premise determine an actor's credibility. In mime, the premise changes how you do something. In the SE world, the motivation for doing certain work will change how you do it.

A person who has mastered mime isolations (exercises) won't be a perfect mime until they've gotten the premise right. A mime attempting to create the illusion of a tug of war, needs to feel the tug before moving; if not, the movement looks fake. 

The premise is critical. As a changemaker, it's the tug of oppression, disparity, and inequality that influences the movement. WIthout the tug, the integrity of the movement is affected. 

Your premise also affects your wider audience. Montanaro says, "My ability to believe these things, these images, determines the clarity of my gestures and the integrity of my sketch. My belief ignites my audience's belief, and they join me in my adventures." Isn't that what social movements are all about?

Doing: There is no blueprint

The inventors of mime work and those great illusions that we enjoy - the tug of war, the ladder climb, the wall - didn't read a book to figure out how to create them. Instead, the inventors of this work studied real-life situations to understand the tangible forces causing the physical effects. 

They understood the importance of understanding not only the wall, but its forces. In fact, the physical object--for example, the wall--isn't what is most important at all in the mime illusion, but rather what that physical object does to you. Likewise, in the SE world, it's not just about understanding systems, markets, institutions, but what those things do to people. Understanding the effects help us to better interact with the object.

Montanaro talks about the good that comes from not reading the instructions. And the ability to "trust" and "thrust" -- feeling the outside force and "thrusting" against it. A just do it approach.

Character: Giving in to the work

In mime work, one has to create and thrust oneself into character. The character (like a cause or your work) has no life of its own - the actor breathes life into the character. 

Montanaro points out: "...when you do not loan all of yourself to your character, you have to treat your character as a separate entity and speculate on his/her feelings, thoughts, and behavior. While you're busy speculating on your character's behavior, you can never move and speak spontaneously. But if you "give in" to your character, if you let the character "get to you," then the correct thoughts, words, and actions will occur to you, as if by magic."

If we keep ourselves distanced from the work, we risk losing the spontaneous and invaluable actions and thoughts that can occur to us when we delve in, despite the risk.

In Short:

If Montanaro were asked about social change, I think he might say: Give in to the work and the risk, let it get to you, feel the tug, forget the instructions and use your experience as expertise.

By Tylea Richard

A year before I enrolled at New York University and the Reynolds Program, I entered a crash course in Social Entrepreneurship at the Nueva Vida Fair Trade Zone in Nicaragua. Most of the Fall was spent with my eye pressed into a tiny plastic magnifying glass, using the tip of a sewing needle to count each thread in a square inch of unbleached organic cotton fabric. Once Angel and Aguila, the men I worked with at the cutting table, gently unrolled the oatmeal colored cloth across the long surface, I would lean forward and adjust the magnifying glass until the tiny jersey knit came into focus. I would count, write down the results, and the process would begin again. This glamorous job taught me that it was easy to dream about a high quality, fair trade, organic cotton T-shirt produced in a cooperative. It was quite another matter to make that happen.

Several months later, I co-founded the Nicaraguan Garment Workers Fund with this knowledge in hand. At times, applying for 501c(3) status and negotiating with customs brokers felt more painstakingly tedious than counting threads. But with a little patience, the NGWF has blossomed. We sell the organic cotton tees made at the Fair Trade Zone to individuals as well as wholesale to organizations, businesses, schools, and artists. Proceeds from the sale of the shirts are used primarily for employee training programs, technical capacity building, and product development in the factory. We are in the process of investigating how to take the factory off the grid. With rolling blackouts wiping out power in Managua for hours everyday, solar panels would not only reduce the factory's footprint but it would also save money and improve productivity. 

The Worker-Owners of the Nueva Vida Fair Trade Zone are working tirelessly towards autonomy. My goal is to help them get there through the increased revenues and exposure that we can generate through the NGWF. But we are not designed to be a perpetual "crutch" for the Co-op. Because we are consultants and not factory managers, the NGWF will meanwhile work tirelessly to be superfluous. In fact, it was only under these conditions that the Fair Trade Zone and the Nicaraguan Garment Workers Fund agreed to work together. Amazingly, the NGWF has already received similar requests of support from numerous cooperatives around the world and from apparel companies wishing to source from them.

I strongly believe that viable alternatives to sweatshop labor are possible, but there is still a gap between consumers and producers of socially and environmentally responsible clothing. As smart shoppers, strong advocates and savvy businesspeople, together we can continue raising the bar for workers everywhere.

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Check out the NGWF in the Shop With a Conscience Guide and look for us soon on Ebay's World of Good!