This six-month oral heritage drama therapy project will bring around 30 refugees and asylum seekers together for a series of creative drama and writing workshops.
Their play, Trojans, created from a year of workshops in Glasgow with Syrian refugees, had a Gala Night at the EICC at Edinburgh Festival in 2019
The stories of refugees integrating their lives to Scotland are the subject of a new drama project being launched in Stirling next week.
The Trojan Women Project has been creating therapeutic drama programmes since 2013, supporting those looking to escape conflict and abuse elsewhere and gain a valuable fresh start.
This six-month oral heritage drama therapy project taking place at the Hillview Community Centre in St Ninians will bring around 30 refugees and asylum seekers together for a series of creative drama and writing workshops.
Among those taking part will include those from Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and others from different communities.
Using Euripides’ anti-war tragedy, ‘The Trojan Women’ as a creative framework, participants weave their own stories of displacement, survival and rebuilding life in a new country into the play.
The workshops will culminate in a public performance at the Macrobert Arts Centre in September, performed and co-written by the participants and directed by Stirling-based Ukrainian actor/director Vira Klymkovetska and Offie-nominated Scottish director William Stirling.
Vira said: “When the war started in Ukraine, I lost the opportunity to work in the theatre.
“Moving to Scotland with two young children as a single mother made it impossible to continue my acting career at that time. But living in Stirling, I found a new dream: to bring high-quality contemporary theatre to this wonderful Scottish community.
“It makes me happy to help people unlock their creative potential and show Scotland their captivating stories of dignity, resilience, and the desire to make the world a better place, starting with oneself.”
The drama project – which runs between April 10 to the end of July – combines various benefits for the participants, including helping to overcome trauma and isolation while building connections with local communities.
The Stirling workshops also provide a welcoming and supportive environment for participants, including free hot meals, childcare and travel allowances, ensuring that refugees and asylum seekers can take part fully regardless of financial or family pressures.
As part of the project, an oral heritage archive which will be lodged at Stirling University, capturing refugee testimonies through recorded interviews and a podcast series titled “Why Am I In Your Country?”, givinh refugees a platform to explain the journeys that brought them here.
Award-winning Scottish filmmaker William Stirling and filmmaker and journalist Charlotte Eagar are the co-producers for The Trojan Women Project.
They said: “Our aim is to create a model that can be replicated across the UK, combining theatre, oral history and community engagement to amplify refugee voices while strengthening understanding and connections between newcomers and host communities.”
“Our project enables refugees to share their experiences directly with the communities around them. Through theatre, storytelling and oral history, participants can transform personal experiences of displacement into powerful public narratives.”
Iryna, a previous participant in the project, added: “Trojans is a magic that allows one to go out of one’s own bubble, tell one’s story to others, acquire new experience in acting, communicating and interacting with people of different nationalities.
“I hope that this project will help refugees overcome trauma and send a strong message to the world that wars and violations of human rights have always been harmful to humanity and to women.”