Dina Moussawi, London-based actress and project coordinator at Complicite Theatre Company, has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to fund a six-week theatre workshop in Beirut for female Palestinian and Syrian refguees.
The project, which Moussawi titled "Terrestrial Journeys," will help refugee women respond to visual and oratorical arts such as poetry and film to devise a theatrical production to be performed in Beirut at the end of the training period.
Moussawi, who is of Iraqi descent, aims to use theater and art to guide the women on a "cathartic" journey that she hopes can be harnessed for social change.
"Having worked on such theater projects before, I have seen the positive effects on refugee women who have not only lived through tragedies of war, crossed borders and left much behind, but who also bear a terribly misogynistic society," she said, according to the IndieGoGo campaign.
This will be her second time working with Palestinian and Syrian refugee women in Beirut. The crowdfunding campaign serves to raise money for costs ranging from performers' weekly salaries to prop, costume and set design purchases. The campaign's donation goal, which is set at 5,000 British pounds ($7,594), will also fund travel expenses for the creative team, rent for studio space, and a celebratory dinner at the end of the training period. So far, 4,862 pounds ($7,384) have been raised, leaving a little more than $200 left to be donated.