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HighWater Theatre
(SDT’s First Offspring)
There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.
Nelson Mandela
Since 2001, Somebody’s Daughter Theatre Company, in collaboration with Gateway Community Health Service and the Department of Early Childhood and Development has been working intensively in Albury/Wodonga, on a full-time creative arts-based education program with rural teenagers called, ‘HighWater Theatre’.
Set on the banks of the Murray river, at beautiful Gateway Island, multi-award winning HighWater is a unique program where professional artists and post-release women (trainee artists) work with some of the most disengaged, high risk young people in this regional community. All of the 12 - 17 year old participants have missed not just days but years of school. Most have histories of extreme abuse and homelessness and all are seen as the most difficult. HighWater’s success has derived from the fact that the arts lead education and the program is intensive and long-term.
Gateway Community Health employs a Young Person’s Advocate to support the health and welfare needs of each young person and the Department of Early Childhood and Development (Hume Region) funds a specialist full-time teacher to work one on one with participants on literacy and numeracy and to negotiate pathways back into education or training.
Between 2001 and 2007, as part of the HighWater Theatre programme:
- 2016 core workshops were conducted
- 4 new Australian plays were produced - and toured to schools and theatres 1 play was placed on the VCE drama and theatre studies syllabus.
- 186 performances were presented in theatres, schools and community venues, 23,200 people attended these HWT performances
- 98 workshops were facilitated with diverse groups
- 27 conferences had HWT performances or presentations - including the World Health Promotion Conference, International Judges &
- Magistrates Conference, National Crime Prevention Conference, National Youth Health Conference
“HighWater Theatre is all about creating choices, providing a solid structure of support to enable young lives to walk paths in our world that were previously inaccessible to them.” Maud Clark AM Artistic Director
Links
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (D.E.E.C.D)
HighWater Partnership Report Partnership Report By Osfield Consultants
Riverina Institute of TAFE (Albury)
Continuing Education Centre: Albury-Wodonga
