Play shows challenges for young girls
A hard-hitting interactive performance showed the challenges faced by young girls growing up in Wolverhampton.
The production, titled 'Real Talk', is a collaboration of voluntary and community organisations in the city funded by Comic Relief as part of their 'I Define Me' international funding stream.
This is the first international funding of it's kind and supports girls aged nine to 19-years-old who face a range of challenges in their lives brought about by exposure to, contact with or involvement in gang-related activity.
The play shows the effects of the choices made by of 15-year-old Shan and her relationships with her family, friends and an older boy who is part of a gang.
Sharlie Morais, writer, director and facilitator of the performance said: "I wrote the play around the experiences of these young girls who were brave enough to share their stories.
"It doesn't follow just one of them, but a mixture of their stories and the different challenges they have faced.
"It acts as a prevention tool. We stop after the performance and evaluate it, we go back and do each scene again and stop the action when there is a point where a change could be made and something done differently and try it to see what may happen."
Girls Allowed has been running for two and a half years in Wolverhampton and in that time has engaged with more than 150 young girls.
Some of the youngsters who shared their experiences which shaped the story were at the performance at Newhampton Arts Centre, one of them said: "If it hadn't had been for Girls Allowed I would have had no one to talk to about my problems, I would've felt trapped."
The project has now received additional funding so that it can continue.
Dr Bozena Sojka, part of the evaluation team from University of Wolverhampton, said: "It has had an enormously positive impact on young girls, and in turn Wolverhampton and the wider Black Country."
