Untrodden path
A few years ago I met a person who shared similar views on therapy through the arts and ways of working with people with a range of disabilities. Michal Stanowski is a drama therapist, but also – or maybe most of all – the originator and initiator of an artistic movement of people with health problems, their therapists, instructors and volunteers. All of us together, through systematic artistic activities, by organising various events, and in our daily work strive towards facilitating the personal growth of people within the movement and more broadly to change the situation of people with disabilities within our society. The movement is called “Untrodden Path” and now it is not only in Poland, but also in Ukraine and Belarus.
The movement was initiated over 21 years ago in Lublin, Poland. Michal Stanowski started to organize artistic workshops for teachers and carers of people with disabilities. His aims were to raise the standard of their work and to shape an appropriate attitude towards people with disabilities. These could be summed up in the sentence: “We do not work FOR people with disabilities - we work TOGETHER with them”.
Workshops were and still are a very important part of Untrodden Path’s actions. But every year we also organize a series of events such as drama, music, art and poetry festivals. It is characteristic of these events that artists do not compete with each other, but have fun together. However, this absolutely does not mean that the artistic standard level is low. We strive to ensure that it is as high as possible, but the priority is always to take care of the development of our artists with disabilities. They are our central concern: we want them to feel like true artists, because that is indeed what they are.
Every festival has its Consultant Council – a group of artists and specialists in various kinds of therapy. There is a drama therapist, a music therapist, an art therapist, a body movement specialist etc. The role of the Consultant Council is to help discover potential in every artist and to advise their carers and instructors on how they can work to support the development of each artist. Members of the Consultant Council also offer workshops with the artists and their teachers all year round.
Artistic actions are combined with therapy. This is a central means of realizing Untrodden Path’s primary mission: the development of people. In our view, the process of development is analogous to therapy. This is also why Untrodden Path has played an important part in the creation of the Art Therapy Center in Lublin (Poland) and it influences the style of its functioning: the Art Therapy Center came into existence not only to deliver therapy but also to animate the environment of people with disabilities, to integrate them with their local communities, to spur them into action and to support not only their development, but also that of their teachers, instructors, and carers, and our volunteers.
It is gratifying that we can see the effects of our work more and more every year. We can see not only our artists being transformed, but also their instructors and volunteers. Some of our volunteers have decided to undertake university degree courses in pedagogy and psychology.
At the beginning it wasn’t easy. It’s still not easy, thanks to all kinds of problems (not least financial). But we are happy that at present about 1000 people with a range of disabilities take part in Untrodden Path, along with 150 volunteers, and we take care of about 40 artistic groups. We believe that we can influence our society’s ways of thinking about people with health problems.
This year the grand finale of the year’s activities will be on 8-10 April in Lublin. There’s still time to buy plane tickets and come to Poland. You will all be made very welcome!
How to cite this page
Stachyra, Krzysztof (2011). Untrodden path Untrodden path. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 08, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2011-untrodden-path
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