Weren’t Born Rich is proud to announce that we will be presenting to you a Live Drama Performance on Sickle Cells Anaemia and how effects sufferers, carriers and those around them in the western world more specifically East London.
Sickle Cell is a serious disease that affects mainly black people of African and Caribbean origin. East London has a large black population, which includes Newham, the centre of this project, where one-fifth of the total population is black. This means that in East London there exist many sufferers of the disease and carriers of the trait responsible f
or the disease. Sickle Cell affects one’s life expectancy and causes many health problems, such as bacterial infections, bone and joint problems, folate deficiency, epilepsy, chronic lung disease, vision problems, anxiety and many more complications.
The project will be sponsored by National Lottery Community Fund working alongside the East African Muslim Cultural Group. It will utilise drama to engage young people from diverse backgrounds to explore the impacts of Sickle Cell on individuals and society, raise awareness of the disease and help develop wider empathy and sympathy with respect to the experiences of sufferers. It will engage thirty young people, aged 18-30, ten per theme, to explore the real-life experiences of sickle cell sufferers at ‘hospital A&E services’, ‘places of employment’ and at ‘institutions of higher education.
They will be guided by an experienced professional, develop scenarios, produce scripts, rehearse and deliver short performances. In the end, the thirty strong group will fuse together the outcomes of the three themes and produce a one-hour performance, delivered at the project end celebration, attended by the wider community. There will be a Q&A. Within one month of the start of the project, baselines will be established, based on a questionnaire interview of fifteen people from the wider community, and use this as a benchmark to evaluate the overall project impacts.
If you would like to take part in this Drama Performance, please complete the volunteering application form.
