"Our Children Won’t Stop Singing"
On 21 March, at the Théâtre du Toursky in Marseilles, 250 children, aged between three and six years old, performed “Le voyage de Petit Pierre” before 700 people
This performance was the culmination of two years’ work for an ATD Fourth World street library, a community centre and a nursery school. It all began in September 2006. The ATD Fourth World team organising a street library in the Rosiers neighbourhood wanted to get to know better the families of the children that they were meeting every Wednesday through books and art workshops. The Rosiers Community, Cultural and Sports Centre was also looking to reach out to those residents of the neighbouhood who were not linked to the centre. François Le Gall, a member of the ATD Fourth World team and currently studying music at university in nearby Aix-en-Provence, came up with the idea of collecting the songs sung at home in the families’ mother tongues and of working with the parents to ensure that the songs could become a cultural heritage for the neighbourhood’s residents and the professionals who work there. Jean-Yves Pichot, the then director of the community centre, proposed involving the Sinoncelli nursery school in the project. The director of the latter, Christian Gouin, recalls, “What I liked about the idea was taking into account the culture of the children’s families, that it was a way to build bridges between the nursery and what goes on inside the home. I thought that this culture, which had come from somewhere else, could open people’s eyes to new horizons and contribute to building a culture of respect for others by getting people interested in people and things that were different.”
At first, hardly anybody dared share a personal, family song. Instead, at the entrance to the nursery school and in the waiting room of a mother-and-baby clinic, people were invited to share how to say “Welcome” in their native language. From this beginning, 2006-07 became a year of collecting songs in French as well as in Alsatian, Arab, Ch’timi, Comorian, Kabyle, Kurdish, Malagasy, Maori, Serbo-Croat and Wolof. At the nursery school, just as at the crèche, the children learned the songs in music workshops, sometimes with their parents. This led to some families beginning to share traditional tales with the group.
A number of events allowed teachers, workshops facilitators, professionals and parents to get to know each other better. “Some families are more at ease with the nursery, while others are more at ease with the street library or the community centre. Then, when they see us working together, the pieces fall into place a little more easily,” explained Christian Gouin.
In September 2007, the project began to put down in writing tales of voyages while, at the same time, decorations for the stage were made and more songs were gathered together, this time in French, Italian, Polish, Provençal and Vietnamese. Here again, the parents played their part: “One father explained in Arab to all the other parents how to get to the theatre on foot,” says a teacher.
One the big day itself, a woman stood outside trembling with emotion: “It was wonderful to hear the children in the front rows singing along with the children on stage. That’s the proof that this has really gotten inside people’s homes and had an impact on whole families.” A teacher added, “One of the facilitators from the street library told the parents to meet up outside the nursery school and, from there, they all went together to the theatre. Without that, so many simply wouldn’t have come. They’d have been scared of getting lost.” Marzena Jakubowska, a member of the ATD Fourth World team, remembers, “Whole families came, some even with uncles and aunts, and we never expected that! Even when events are organised in the neighbourhood, it’s so difficult to get people to come and get them involved. But the fact they came this time shows what a difference it makes to work together with the nursery school, which is an institution they know and recognise.”
In the days after the event, some parents brought an article cut out of a newspaper while others spoke about new adventures: “You can re-do this whenever you want. The children are ready, now! They won’t stop singing at home…” The director of the nursery school concludes, “We plant seeds… what’s important is to let them live experiences like this one.”
