Sole Purpose Productions - A Wee Taste

Project title: A Wee Taste

Region: Northern Ireland

Amount Approved: £15,975

Sole Purpose Productions is a not-for-profit educational theatre company operating in Northern Ireland. Although they had never delivered a project concerning alcohol specifically, they have tackled a rich variety of social issues in previous awareness raising activity, ranging from the abuse suffered by older people, immigrant experiences in Northern Ireland and domestic violence.

This initiative comprises a fifty-minute play, A Wee Taste by Patricia Byrne, for school pupils aged 10 to 13 to be toured to at least 15 schools in and around Derry. The plot centres on a stormy mother-daughter relationship, where both characters fail to communicate productively on the subject of alcohol, with the mother setting a poor example by drinking heavily. The daughter is also depicted as someone who drinks to fit in with peers and takes pains to avoid the lightweight label.

Road safety, sexual risk-taking and deteriorating performance at school are also addressed by the narrative. However, the play ends with resolutions between key characters and is followed by a Q&A session with actors in character to ensure all the key material has been taken in.

As well as these post-performance sessions with actors, each school then benefits from workshops delivered by a partner agency to smaller groups a week or two after pupils have seen the play. These feature many of the usual exercises employed by school workshop providers, such as quizzes and art-based activities, but begin by discussing the events in the play and the behaviour of the main characters. This is based on the premise that young people will have had some time to reflect on the issues, in class or by themselves, which represents the key difference between this project and the methods in nearly all TiE funded by Drinkaware to date. They discuss alcohol as a drug, explain the law and units as would be expected with most interventions of this nature, but also explore more imaginative points such as the fact young people can expect far less care than they normally expect from their friends if the whole group is under the influence of alcohol.'

Not only does this provide the kind of value and reach Drinkaware needs to see with all but the smallest grants, this project also represents the first midrange award in Northern Ireland since larger sums became available to applicants in 2009.

Page last updated by: Unknown, 10 May 2012.

Page checked on: 23 Nov 2011