My name is Said Balamat, I come from Sudan and I am 25 years old. I have been in Italy as an asylum seeker since 2022.
In November 2023 I got to know the cultural association Smascherati! through a theatre workshop called HOST, which took place at the residence where I was staying. Thanks to HOST, I approached theatre and was able to perform my first show!
After this first experience, I decided to continue participating in the workshops of the Smascherati! Association and have since been an active part of the intercultural theatre workshop Human Beings. Thanks to this, I was also able to participate in the Erasmus+ Theatre TRAILS project.
Thanks to the theatre workshop, I had the opportunity to get out of the residence where I live and have a different experience: in the workshop I met many people from all over the world, I got to know their cultures and I was able to share my own.
The workshop also took me away from loneliness and sadness, it was not easy for me to make new friends, but here I found so many!
At the theatre we are like a family, we help and support each other, now I know I have loved ones in Italy too.
When I arrived, in fact, I immediately felt welcome, everyone was very friendly with me.
At the beginning it was an experiment, to see if the environment suited me or not. Today I feel lucky to be part of this group.
A nice thing that happened to me is to feel part of a group: in Sudan I used to make videos for Tik tok, but I was always alone. Here I discovered the group, which is a bit like a family.
Thanks to the theatre workshop, I was able to broaden my view of the world, I got to know new points of view and ideas, I feel I have been more open-minded. Here I can talk to many people and this helps me to grow.
I really enjoy doing the shows: I feel good, excited and full of life.
I learnt many things attending the workshop: I improved my level of Italian, I got to know many different cultures, not just Italian culture, I learnt how to do theatre.
Before I was also very shy, I was afraid of the public and people, now I feel I have grown up, I am less afraid, I can trust people.
I really enjoyed doing the workshop and the TRAIL show, where I met new people from Bulgaria and Ireland. I had a lot of fun!
I would like to continue doing theatre, to help my group grow and to make these workshops known everywhere where so many people mix and meet and where it doesn’t matter if you are an asylum seeker or a retired person.
