Poems for Freedom

Solidarity event with the purpose of doing fundraising for the Zohra Orchestra- Afghan Women’s Orchestra

The event "Poems for Freedom" is an arts solidarity project bringing together teachers from different disciplines (Portuguese, theater, citizenship, music, art), students from a variety of professional courses in music, performing arts/interpretation, visual arts, and mechatronics, and finally, adult learners from the wider community studying Portuguese as Second Language at the Templários Educational and Training Collective in Tomar.

The event will take place on June 3rd, at 9:30 pm, at Cine-Teatro in Tomar. All box office proceeds will be used to financially support the ANIM - Instituto de Música Nacional do Afghanistan and its female orchestra Zohra .

Due to the war and oppression worsened by the new Taliban government in Afghanistan, the musicians in this orchestra were forced to flee, either for their dedication to the arts (banned from their country) or simply for being a girl wanting to study. They have recently been given political asylum by the Portuguese Government and are gradually getting integrated in society and continuing their studies. The current fundraising efforts are to address an urgent need to both secure a space for them to practice, but especially the purchase of musical instruments for those musicians that had to leave their instruments behind.

This project has been entirely conceived and organized by the students who will be joined on stage by a representation of the Zohra orchestra.

This is, however, not a stand-alone event. Since September 2021, various social awareness actions have been organised to raise awareness of the still existing limitations on Liberty in society and world at large. Furthermore, particular effort was made to promote contact and collaboration between students from the various countries who form today’s multicultural social network of Tomar.

Some news in the Portuguese media..

Orchestra concert during the Davos Conference (2017)

SIC report (2022)

Trabalho de colaboração com a professora de Teatro e Interpretação.

About the author

This event has been entirely developed and planned by students of the Agrupamento de Escolas Templários, based in Tomar.  It has been developed in the context of the wider project Essência | Being Humanity: Cultural, Children and Environment Week,and the Local City Council Award "Aristides de Sousa Mendes and other Portuguese saviors" with the aim of broadening awareness regarding the universal values of humanism and justice.

The event would not have been possible to organize without the support of and close collaboration with the Junta de Freguesia Urbana de Tomar, Tomar City Council, and the Convent of Christ. What started out as a simple school project of creative freedom, soon became a larger project strengthened by a strong collaboration between students across different professional areas, listed below:

• Professional Course in Music
• Professional Course in Performing Arts
• Professional Course in Visual and Multimedia Arts
• Professional Course in Mechatronics
• Students learning Portuguese as a second language

Alunos nos primeiros ensaios

Budget and due dates

This project has the generous contribution of all the artists who will collaborate pro bono.

Associated with the production of the show, we have the following amounts as expenses.

Show budget: until June 3rd

Any surplus resulting from this fundraising will be donated in full to the Zohra Orchestra. Together with the show’s box office proceeds, this will contribute towards the purchase of musical instruments - estimated funds achieved:  € 2333.00.

Images

Documents

• cartaz_poemas_da_liberdade-convertido.pdf

  pdf • 132.3 KB