I draw this introduction to give a picture of how we gain and run our work in the country, and also to emphasis the necessity and the genuineness of this project.The first stage of our work process was to find cooperation and working channels, a partner who could comprehend and evaluate the necessity of this project, in a country still not recovered from war and destruction.

Exploration

During our practical workshop with, both theatre student and community, I explored more in our practical workshops the methods of the theatre of the oppressed by Boal, and how we can use these powerful tools inside and outside the academic sphere to achieve our goal.
After we had worked with developing the actor capability in various disciplines at the fist model, we transform the work out side the academic sphere. Namely to the community.
We done workshops and training with NGO and different community groups. Permeated our process throughout these days many hinder and obstacles. Most effected was the deterioration of the security situation in Baghdad from time to time.

Condition

The workshops were postponed many times for many reasons, and reasons in Baghdad are so many. Curfew and blocking the road, are common reasons that prevented the group from attending the workshops, but there was other obstacles which prevented the realization of the workshops e.g. battles in the streets of Baghdad, a car bomb, Which diverted the workshops sometimes into a hiding place, where the group wanted to gain peace and relaxation And I'm happy that the group deals with the workshop at that level!
Once I asked the participant to recall an event that they had been through, or a character from their own life; the objective was to use this material in our theatrical workshops. An actress took the initiative, she started to tell us a story about her friend who died recently in a car bomb in Baghdad, unfortunately, her attempt to recall that event and embody it inside the workshop, was so emotional for her and for other members of the group that the workshop broke down, and the rest of the time was diverted to comfort the group.
The condition of the workshops in Baghdad right now has no comparison with many other workshop achievements in the rest of the world.
The actors come daily to the workshop with immense anxiety, and any emotional provocation could result in unwanted scene. Knowing this fact makes it reasonable to create good environments inside and outside the workshops and also help the actors to be more professional when they attend the workshop.

Forum theatre and Oppression

One of the most difficult tasks on the theatrical level was to practice and implement the forum theatre.
There is a pressing desire to use and practice new methods of theatrical presentation in Iraq, especially when we know the fact that the only practice form on the theatrical scene in Iraq is some of the Stanislawski principles, not all of them, And that is obviously because many considerable fact related directly to the social structure of the Iraqi society.
There have been always oppression outside our workshops, which impacts the structure of the workshop. There are many pressing issues and matters that actors suffer from, huge pressures that they encounter every day. This pressure has different faces and forms. Issues that we cannot deal with, such as the security situation in Baghdad. The growth of religion which start to take different dimension.
and destructive roll in the society, Issues that we can not ignore or deal with.

Therefore we decided to practice issues that dose not cause us or others any kind of provocation or harm.
There are boundaries between talking about misery outside the workshops and inside. It is a tiny sensitive line and I have to observe that constantly.
In one of our first workshops with forum theatre, I suggested to work together and discuss the violence inside the Iraqi families, the authoritarianism of the father or the dominance of the oldest brother inside the community. There was obvious lack of concern or interest in this matter. I left the choice to the group to decide what topics they would like to work with; the choice was the abuse of the mobile phone inside families.
This attitude takes us back to the stereotype form that the Iraqi theatrical achievement is based on.
There is also a sense of denial of the existing of oppression, whether religious or political, and on many occasion, we came into differences, because, what I consider as oppression, the group considers, the same as a social custom or tradition, and what is oppression in their eyes I consider as just  right.
One of these examples, they do not consider people being deprived of their rights as oppression; it is considered as custom, like women’s issue, sexual issues, and many others.
We have spent a great deal of time approaching a common understanding of what is oppression and what it is not. There was also a crucial matter arising during our work, it is an ethical question regarding the way that theatre makers integrate and cope with social development in aesthetic relationship. The question was, is the development of theatre equivalent to the complication and development of society