Project Turkey

So, why Turkey?

Turkey hosts four million refugees, and has been the largest refugee-hosting country for the past nine years. Many refugees were already living in precarious temporary accommodation in Eastern Turkey, when the recent earthquake hit. These communities are now twice displaced, and children suffering through the trauma of this desperately need help to be reconnected to the crucial elements of childhood, through storytelling, music, and play.

You can read more about our previous project to Turkey here.

Photos from our previous projects in Turkey

The project…

Team members: Eight people, either acting or music students. We’re very keen on having a mixture of musicians and actors, as the show will be devised mixing physical theatre and musical instrument playing. Leading the team is Bianca Watts!

Dates of the project: From 20th July - 1st August

Devising the show: The whole team will meet up once a week in during the summer term, to devise the show and workshop. A Penguin show usually lasts about 45 minutes, and gets everyone involved in the music and the acting. A good way to describe our performances is ‘storytelling through music and movement’. The show is followed by a workshop!

Where in Turkey? We will fly to Istanbul where we will perform some shows and then spend most of our time in Gaziantep to work closer to the earthquake region and the large Syrian population.

Performances? We will perform the show and workshop once or twice a day, to refugee children in camps (settlements), squats, community centres, and NGO premises. It’s all a very thrilling and a humbling human experience.

What language will we speak? The performances and workshops are wordless – because the children do not speak English. We will use English to get around, but you’re encouraged to learn a few words of Turkish and Arabic!

Where will we be staying? In a mix of Airbnb’s and youth hostels.

A few words about how we operate…

We’re a grassroots group of students and graduates, who produce these tours abroad on our free time. We choose to commit to this cause because we strongly believe in the transformative power of Penguin experiences, for children and training performers alike. Basically, we absolutely love it. As of now, since we're all volunteers, we don't have the time resources to apply for funding, so we ask the participants to fundraise the costs of the trips themselves. This model is very much suited and designed for musicians and actors who are currently training - but we accept applications from everyone! So here’s the deal:

The project costs £1050 per person. This covers absolutely everything: Flights to and from London, travel to and from performances, travel between cities, all accommodation and food during the project, and a £200 development fee to cover production costs and to keep these projects running.

  • Each member will pay £150 as an inscription cost by 1st December

  • A second payment of £150 will then be paid by 10th January,

  • And the team will communally fundraise the rest, i.e. £750 per person, through a fundraising campaign with many activities.

How this Fundraising campaign works:

  • We start now;

  • Each member of this project agrees to take part in the activities we’ll be doing (concerts, cake sales, charity concerts, internet crowdfunding page… whatever comes to your brilliant creative minds). The profits are then split equally between all team members;

  • For the past two years, all our projects have raised over £500 per person. Considering the fact that we’re a growing organisation and that each new project always raises more funding than the previous one, we’re pretty confident that the team will reach its goal;

  • If we don’t reach our goal of raising £750 per person (as mentioned – this goal is highly achievable), each member of the team is still liable to pay for the missing amount for his trip (as Wind-Up Penguin doesn’t actually have the extra funding), so it’s all about whether you’re up for a fundraising challenge!

  • Exceeding this fundraising goal means each member could even get up to £100 back from the £300 initial payment;

  • Fundraising will take up a little of your time, but it’s great team bonding, and all of our members have always enjoyed taking part in these activities;

  • We can chat at your interview more in detail about this and show you our detailed strategy of how we’ll achieve our goal.