Rohingya Culture and Traditions (4 of 8 Parts)

Introduction (5 minutes)

• Welcome the participants
• Remind the participants that this workshop is part of the course about Rohingya Culture and Traditions
• Introduce today session (objective and how long it will be)

Ice-breaking game (10 minutes)

• Explain that you are going to do an ice-breaking game to warm up the participants and to help them to improve their listening and concentration skills during the session.
• Gather the participants in one group, seated.
• Ask one person to stand up in front of the group. The group has to take a good look at the person.
• This person will go outside and s/he will change one detail (for example change the finger ring).
• S/he will come back in front of the group, and the group has to guess what changed.
• If nobody finds the detail after a couple of minutes, then s/he can give a clue (like it’s on my arm).
• Conclude the game by saying how important details can be. Thank the participants for their participation.

Main activity (70 minutes)

Part 1 – Review of the last workshop (5 minutes)

Ask the participants if they remember what was discussed in the last workshop. Encourage everyone to participate.

Part 2 – Collecting cooking recipes (45 minutes)

• Ask everybody to share the cooking recipes they collected

The participants need to think about which occasion the recipe is made for (for everyday life, wedding, Eid or newborn…)

• Get ready to record it, practice several times so everything is well said, in the right order. Also, decide who will speak (several voices possible). Do it several times to be well prepared
• Record the recipes with the recorder
• Listen to what has just been recorded, decide if we keep it or if we should do it again (if do it again, we practice first)
• Careful: At the end of the session, the facilitator will go through all the photo that participants captured using their phone and save them on the laptop, in the same folder (the folder should have the name of the course and the target group), giving a clear title to each picture or voice record (like the title of the cooking recipe and the information that it’s a fairy tales or a poem or a cooking recipe…)

Part 3 – Introducing Poem Collections (20 minutes)

• Explain and Ask: we are going to do an activity about poem. So, can you explain what is poetry and what is a poem? (the facilitator will give some time to the participants to think and answer).
• Explain: Poetry is a type of artistic writing, that attempts to stir a reader’s imagination and emotions. The poet does this by carefully choosing and arranging language for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. Some poems are simple and humorous. Other poems may try to express some truth about life, to tell a story, or to honour a person. Poetry appears in great many forms and styles.
• Explain: a poem can be about any topic, can use only a few words or be several pages long, often ends with a punch, has a title, may use invented spelling, may be serious or humorous, usually expresses personal feelings and emotion but not always. There is no right or wrong poem.
• Ask: Poetry and poem are in many different countries and cultures. Do you know why people write poems? And why do you like or dislike poem? (the facilitator will let some time to the participants to think and answer).
• Explain: here too, there is no right or wrong answers. We all like or dislike poem for different reasons and it is fine, because we are all different persons with different feelings. One reason why people write poems is because it is a nice way to express what they feel, to express their emotions, using words. It is a way to share what you feel and to make the others understand how you feel in a different way than speaking.

Conclusion (5 minutes)

• Thank the participants for their involvement and concentration during the session.
• Summarize what was learnt during the session: Today we learnt about different cooking recipes which are very traditional in the Rohingya culture and we introduce ourselves to Poem collections.
• Collect feedback from the participants. Ask questions like: Do you feel that you learnt something during the session? Do you think this new knowledge can be useful to you? Were you comfortable during the session?
• For the next workshop, ask your relatives and the elderly of the community to tell you traditional poems (in Rohingya or Burmese language) and try to remember it well. If they agree, invite them to join during the next workshop.
• Give the date and location of the next session to the participants, make sure everybody will be available. If not, find a more convenient time and place so everybody can be here.