Oily Cart, Interesting.

For my dissertation I am endeavoring to write and research arts with children who have severe and multiple learning difficulties.

I recently contacted Oily Cart who are a prestigious company that caters for these children and also children under 5 and their families. They sent me some great information about what they do but also talked about how they reach out to this specific community which is an aspect that I hadn't thought about before.

They talked about helping 'with the integration of this community into society at large' which shows how children who do have a learning difficulties are in a community themselves thus in a certain sense are excluded from other communities. In my experience this is true as I know of groups and individuals who have learnt to live with their disabilities but still find social interaction a big challange and therefore do not have the same kind of social lives of that of a 'normal' person. By bringing theatre into these special schools shows how art and performance can have a big role to play in bringing new and exiting experiences to these children that they might not necessarily get to experience due to not being integrated into a bog-standard primary school.

In my own community I feel that we are somewhat exclusive and in a general sense are somewhat ignorant towards these people. I know that if I saw someone on a street who had learning difficulties that I probably wouldn't make the effort to speak to them, not because I am a horrible person but due to how the rest of society sees them as well which then influences my own behaviour. It's about breaking out of this and getting as inclusive as we can, because at the end of the day, we are all people who want to be accepted and out of everyone, a man, woman or a child with a learning difficulty woould want to be accepted and respected the most.