In our first Temu House fund-raiser in collaboration with AirAsia Foundation, we invite you to join us on an evening of Afghan food and theatre. Social enterprise Parastoo Theatre will be debuting their new play ‘I Will Smile Again’ to raise awareness for mental health support for refugees, followed by dinner of delectable Afghan dishes to commemorate World Refugee Day.
To start the evening, participants will watch a 20-minute play to present the main topic. This will be followed by an interactive discussion of the issues guided by a facilitator or a joker. Thereafter, the play concludes and audiences will be invited to partake of a delicious dinner of Afghan festive dishes prepared by Zahra Hussaini and Zainab. The audience will be able to continue their conversations at leisure with the Parastoo team.
Commissioned by AirAsia Foundation, ‘I Will Smile Again’ aims to encourage exchanges between audiences and refugees that help find community-based solutions to address the mental health needs of the community. Parastoo Theatre is a troupe comprising Afghan refugees based in Kuala Lumpur. Founded in 2017 by writer-director Saleh Sepas, Parastoo practices the ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’, a form of interactive theatre developed by Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal that invites the audience to take active participation in experiencing the lived reality of the marginalized. Parastoo also provides an outlet for art therapy to rebuild the confidence of its refugee actors and aid in relieving their own mental health struggles.
In 2019, Parastoo Theatre received a social enterprise grant from AirAsia Foundation to help build the group’s capacity to be self-sustaining and train new actors. All proceeds from this fund-raising evening will benefit Parastoo in its mission to continue raising awareness to social issues faced by the refugee community.
I Will Smile Again
Yasmin hasn’t felt like getting out of bed in days. What for? she figured. There was nothing meaningful for her to do. Back in her homeland, she used to look forward to attending school and tending to her family’s sheep and goats. But everything changed after a fateful encounter. She can’t remember the last time she laughed. Her siblings, Fereshta and Ali, try to help her but are their unwitting efforts making things worse? Evening Flow
18:30 Audiences arrive 19:00 Play begins 19:20 Joker discussion commences 19:45 Dinner is served 21:30 Evening ends