The “Open-Minded me” play has been performed in Prijedor today by the Genesis Project, thus completing a project of the same with the objective of educating pupils on stereotypes and prejudices through the interactive play.
“The main objective we wanted to achieve with this play was to encourage young people to think, to think critically about the society in which they live and to open up opportunities for them to see the causal links between ignorance and closed society on the one hand and prejudices, stereotypes and generalization on the other hand, ”said Dijana Pejić, director of the Genesis Project.
The play and the project have been performed since November last year in Banja Luka, Laktaši, Kozarska Dubica, Gradiška and Prijedor. A great deal of interest in the play indicates that the message has been recognized, as well as the teacher’s assessment that these are the topics that need to be discussed more in the homeroom classes. After the play, educational exchanges were held in which the pupils actively participated.
“The performances were planned to be seen by pupils between the 14 and 17 years of age, but some primary schools were interested in sending younger pupils as well, and secondary schools to send all of their pupils. Therefore, we included the pupils from the 12 to 18 years of age, i.e. from the 6th to 9th grades of primary school and from 1st to 4th grades of secondary school”, said Dijana Pejić. During the 30 performances, a minimum of 2250 students were planned to see the play in the mentioned municipalities, but because of the additional interest and expansion of the number of children, 3697 students from 30 primary and 10 secondary schools saw the play. My Open Mind project is being sponsored by UN IOM/USAID/BHR.