We are delighted to welcome Ishita and Spiti Ecosphere to the Yak Pack Theatre Project, to help us bring our theatre work to the special needs community in the Spiti Valley.
We love performing with children and adults with special needs here in the UK. We work in lots of special schools, as well as day care centres and other specialist venues. We also stage accessible performances for those who find it difficult to access mainstream theatre.
Performing for children and adults with special needs is an important part of the Yak Pack Theatre Project.
But how do we find them?
There are no special schools in Spiti, no residential care homes, no specialist venues.
This is where Spiti Ecosphere comes in.
In the summer of 2016, in partnership with Kullu-based NGO Handimachal, they ran ‘Disability Camps’ to bring heath-care and information for families of people with special needs. In doing so, they identified and documented the community of people with special needs in Spiti, for the first time. As a follow up to the Disability Camps, Spiti Ecosphere have an ongoing project to recruit and train specialist healthcare workers to visit the families in their villages.
Spiti Ecosphere will help us spread the word about the performance to the special needs community, and also help us to identify the best time and place to stage the show. If Spiti Ecosphere run any events for this community – such as the Disability Camps - during the Yak Pack Project, then we will be able to coincide the 2 events.
We look forward to working with Spiti Ecosphere, and are so grateful to have the opportunity to perform with the special needs community in Spiti.