Survivors Tells Their Story Through Theater

Survivors Tells Their Story Through Theater

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Michelle, 16, gave a moving performance in one of the scenes of the advocacy theater  play “Once We Had a Dream” performed during the Children’s Month Celebration organized by another child-focused NGO called ACTION. The activity coincided with the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence under the theme “UNiTE! Activism to end violence against women and girls”. Michelle is a survivor of multiple sexual abuse perpetrated by her own father. She was rescued from her abuser and found shelter and protection at the Preda Home for abused children. She participated in the several  therapeutic interventions offered at the Preda Therapeutic Home for Girls Project, a project empowering girl-survivors of abuse, exploitation and trafficking currently co-funded by the Canadian Fund for Local Initiative (CFLI). She became an empowered young person and having artistic talent became a performing member of the Preda Theater group. Theater performance is a form of therapy for personal expression and self-strengthening and communicating deeper realities to others.  

Michelle is only one of the hundreds of survivors assisted by this project each year. During one of her emotional release therapies, Michele disclosed further details of the horrific abuse done to her by her own father, which started when her mother abandoned Michelle and her other siblings. Michelle was only 9 years old at that time but she was treated like a sex slave by her father. Now safe at Preda, Michelle participated in all the therapies  and became self-confident and self-reliant. She was assisted by the Preda team to seek justice against her father. The father was eventually charged and arrested. He died in prison while on trial.

Michelle already came to terms with this and she is now determined to seek her own future. She is now a senior and trusted client of the Preda Home for Girls assisting the staff and receiving an allowance for helping staff monitor more than 60 other children-survivors of abuse and exploitation who are still recovering from abuse and exploitation  and are also being assisted to bring their perpetrators to justice.

Only recently, Michelle, found to be talented and she was selected to be part of the Preda Advocacy Theater Group together with 4 other survivors, and they are currently preparing for an international advocacy tour in 2023. For Michelle, theater serves as a therapeutic and continuing empowering tool. She is able to tell her story through this theater play to help herself express her life experience and to raise awareness among the public about the plight of abused and trafficked children who are not yet reached and receiving help.