“What is wealth” “what are riches” and “who owns them” -were some of the tricky questions facing children in a series of summer drama workshops run by a Halifax church.
St Anne’s, Southowram has been bringing the gospels to life through writing and drama for more than ten years. Now they have been awarded a community grant from Calderdale Council to continue with this work after refurbishment of their community facilities in the local hall.
The vicar, Fr Guy Jamieson said: “Writing, preparing and performing drama based projects has been a feature of our church life here for more than ten years so to have this support of our local authority means we can reach out even further.
“We want to create as many opportunities as possible for people to “taste” something of the faith and life of the Church because we’ve found it encourages people to bring God into the conversation,” he added.
The two day summer drama workshop explored issues around “value” and “riches “ by using sketches that contrasted wealth and so called riches. For example “Car & No Car” compared the value of quick and long distance journeys with the option not to have a car for the sake of the environment or affordability.
Similarly “Education & No Education” used the story of Malala who defied the Taliban in Pakistan to demand that girls be allowed to receive an education explored different ways of learning in the UK and its privileges, in comparison with those in other parts of the world.
Fr Guy said one mother of a participant sent a message to say: “It is lovely that during the holidays when there is more time to think about things, that you have created a lovely opportunity to reflect on some important values .... in a great fun and social way..... and offered inspiration...”
St Anne’s - one half of the benefice with St Thomas’s Claremont - plans to further develop this work over the autumn and winter.