At this workshop I presented the DDPWI (drama for development in post war Iraq) to the participants at this workshop. I presented the aim and the methods that we are working on.
Most of the participant on this workshop were teenagers from age 15 to 20 and came from different high schools in Baghdad. They belong to different religious and sectarian backgrounds.
In order to give a clear picture of what forum theatre is, we demonstrated abstracts from what we intended to do in front of the students and I also gave a short lecture about the aesthetic aspect of forum theatre and its role in the transition period in Iraq.
From the beginning, there was a positive reaction from the students and there was a good level of understanding about what we wanted to achieve together. We presented a scene that contains several aspect of oppression inside the Iraqi community. And this scene was as follow.
 
A man loses his only source of income when his shop is blown up in a car bomb in Baghdad. Later, he starts to search for another job. He watches an advertisement on TV about job availability in some sector in Baghdad. He goes for a job interview. His application is dismissed, not because he is not qualified, but because of the corruption inside the infrastructure of the Iraqi state. The situation of our protagonist deteriorates more and he does not know what to do. A criminal man abuses this situation and offers the protagonist a fortune if he works with him. The protagonist doesn't   know what to do, he is between his needs and conscious and doesn't know if he should accept the offer from a criminal or not.
The scene ends at this point.

Then, I Asked the spectator, how could we help the protagonist and break down any kind of oppression at this scene, how could we make the scene both realistic and Positive, how could we change this situation?.
Of course there were plenty of feelings whether the audience would participate at this workshop or keep silent. My expectation was that they were shy and reserved. But it was an unexpected surprise.
The first participant were a girl, called Talin, she was 15 years old. She said that she was not happy with the negativity of the man’s wife; she considered that the wife abused the man and did not support him in his straggle. Talin went down to the stage very eagerly and spontaneously, giving the actor structure of how they have to change and break down the oppression.
I asked Talin spontaneously if she wanted to act the wife, and if she wanted to help the wife to break down the oppression, from her own perspective. She accepted that very confidently and took the role of the wife. Talin acted the role in very realistic and sincere way.

I realized at this moment that we had achieved a degree of success, not because Talin participated in the scene but because there was an obvious
State of awareness among a big part of the community, namely teenagers.
After Talin’s intervention, everyone wanted to participate in helping to change the fate of other actors. There was an obvious real desire to be part of the action and to help in changing the action. We did not change and help everyone in the scene, but at least every one tried to change and help.