The Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics is proud to partner with The Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues to advance our shared commitment to improving the lives of children around the world. Through this partnership, the collaborative brings its expertise in centering children and youth in research, policy, and practice, while the Lab contributes its innovative performance-based methods to deepen understanding and spark dialogue around global issues impacting children. Together, we seek to develop artful approaches to care through dynamic, interdisciplinary collaborations that amplify children’s and young people’s voices, inspire empathy and action, and promote the rights and well-being of young people everywhere.
The Cultivating Cultural Resilience Series is an ongoing project led by the Lab that highlights the power and potential of artists working in times of crisis. In an age of fear, censorship, and division, these practitioners model courage and compassion, using performance to expose harm, hold space for truth, and awaken our shared imagination.
In fall 2025, the Lab and the collaborative are co-hosting two sessions that highlight creative approaches to protecting and supporting children in times of conflict and adversity.
In Ukraine, Russian authorities have separated tens of thousands of children from their families, communities, and country and forcibly transferred them to occupied Ukrainian territories, Russia, and Belarus. Amid these challenges, ordinary people—mothers, grandmothers, civil society innovators, and artists—are doing extraordinary things: creating solutions and communicating in new ways when all else fails.
This November 12 event brings together three social creatives—librettist George Brant, child rights advocate Mykola Kuleba, and activist Katya Pavlevych—who are confronting crimes against children through storytelling, performance, and the art of getting things done.
This November 14 workshop will provide an opportunity for people working with children to experience the power of narrative, storytelling, communication, and performance in the midst of conflict and crisis. As part of the Lab’s Art of Care Initiative, it will include Georgetown University students and faculty, frontline actors, social creatives working under authoritarianism, and key allies to share stories, reflect, reconnect with purpose and play, and think through ways to communicate their work to build further support.
I n November 2024, the collaborative and the Lab co-hosted “On Being Young in America” with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs as part of the Culture of Encounter Project. The event, a collaboration with the On Being Project, aimed to offer an alternative to divisive national discourse by elevating young voices and promoting intergenerational dialogue in the heart of Washington, DC.
The evening opened with several performances of short scenes shared by three intergenerational conversation pairs reflecting on how their childhood experiences affect who they are today. These conversations were an outcome of In Your Shoes™, a signature program of the Lab that seeks to promote deep listening and empathy by having participants share their stories with one another and then retell them.
Centered around identity, purpose, and the shared generational responsibility of shaping the future, conversation partners created a reflective space for an audience from the Georgetown and wider DC communities to consider what it means to be young at this pivotal moment in history.
The conversation took place just two weeks after the 2024 U.S. presidential election as conversation participants On Being host Krista Tippett, MacArthur “Genius” Jason Reynolds, and Georgetown University student organizer Kessley Janvier (C’25) explored the universal human questions of what it means to be human, how we want to live, and whom we will be to each other in post-election America.
Read more about their discussion, or listen to a recording as a podcast episode by The On Being Project.
In Your Shoes™ Workshop
“On Being Young in America” was preceded by a day-long workshop facilitated by the Lab and the collaborative, bringing together an intergenerational group of DC-area community leaders, high school and university students, faith leaders, artists, and policymakers. Through individual, group, and paired exercises, the day offered participants an opportunity to engage with the current climate by reconnecting with their childhood selves, reflecting on how these early identities have evolved and continue to impact the present-day versions of themselves.
“In Your Shoes was such a beautiful process and experience. It was filled with love and light, and everyone I crossed paths with throughout my entire time encouraged me to value theater and sharing stories more."
I n September 2023, the collaborative and the Lab welcomed Little Amal—the internationally celebrated 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee—to Washington, DC. Beginning her journey from the Syrian border, Amal carries a message of hope for displaced people everywhere, especially children separated from their families. Embodying the Lab’s mission to humanize politics through performance, Amal’s visit invited the Georgetown community and the wider public to take a child-centered approach to migration by seeing it through the eyes of a child.
As part of the Walk with Amal event, Georgetown University students, artists, and community members gathered in Freedom Plaza for a collective procession led by Amal, culminating at the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where a group of legislators greeted her. The performance, filled with music, poetry, movement, and moments of reflection, highlighted both the courage and resilience of displaced children and affirmed their right to safety, belonging, and care.
"When we metaphorically step into someone else’s shoes, feeling their life’s journey from the inside out, we develop a deeper understanding, something more than the mind can articulate, something felt in the heart.”
As Amal’s journey through DC came to a close, the collaborative carried her message forward through “Children on the Move: A Child-centered Policy and Learning Workshop.” Building on Amal’s message, the workshop transformed art into action, bringing performance-inspired empathy into policy dialogue and practical reflection.
“Having agency over my story and how I say it is not only powerful, but it also brings dignity to me and my people. I have experienced my life, and I take ownership and agency of my story and how I say it.”
– Zahra Wakilzada (SFS’24), a young person from Afghanistan who has experienced displacement
There are more children on the move than ever before, fleeing violence, climate disasters, and poverty. Currently, nearly 40% of the 100 million displaced persons worldwide are under the age of 18. However, the global discourse on forced displacement and migration rarely focuses on children’s best interests, rights, and needs. This workshop invited participants to do just that.
Over the course of a day of interactive dialogue, reflection, and exchange, participants explored what child-centered responses to displacement could look like in both U.S. and global contexts. Young people with lived experience of displacement, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners came together to share expertise, challenge assumptions, and imagine new pathways for care and protection.
A highlight of the event was the panel “Children on the Move: Lived Experience Is Expertise,” which placed young advocates with personal experience of displacement at the forefront of the conversation. Their insights underscored the importance of treating young people not as subjects of policy, but as partners and co-creators of solutions.
This approach reflects the collaborative’s and the Lab’s shared commitment to integrating artistic and narrative methods into policymaking, using empathy as a bridge between performance and practice. Building on Amal’s invitation to see through the eyes of a child, the workshop called on policymakers and practitioners to listen through the lens of children’s and young people’s lived experiences.
Read more about the workshop, its accompanying policy brief, and reflections from the young advocates in “In Our Shoes: Voices of Youth on the Move.“
Music filled the Intercultural Center Auditorium as recording artist and former child soldier Emmanuel Jal wove together songs and stories of adversity and resilience. Performing as part of the Children in a World of Challenges Workshop Series, Jal captured the spirit of this week-long event series designed to facilitate dialogue around pressing issues affecting children globally.
Songs and Stories of Adversity and Resilience.
From his start in life as a child soldier in South Sudan in the early 1980s, Jal has come through unimaginable struggles to become a successful and acclaimed recording artist and peace ambassador. As part of a series of workshops on Children in a World of Challenges: Building Pathways to Resilience, Jal shared his songs and stories of adversity and resilience in this keynote presentation. Following Jal’s performance, Gillian Huebner, executive director of the collaborative, moderated a community conversation with Jal, Ifrah Mansour, Kyryl Myronenko, and the audience about the interplay between trauma, healing, creativity, and culture.
