Understandinglessness
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You will be taken on this magical adventure by extraordinary guides, because the production company Svitac is dedicated to creating with children and youth who have developmental disabilities. They will challenge you to abandon everything you think you know and expect, to immerse yourself in a fantasy, and come out seeing the world through their eyes – pure, fun and beautiful, and a bit more… complicated.
About Us
Association for affirmation of children’s creation „Svitac“ from Belgrade is non-governmental and non-profitable organization formed 2012.
The members of the Association are exclusively experts in their field (special teachers, speech therapists, re-educators, physiatrists, phycologists, teachers) and artists (music teachers, composers, photographers, actors, writers, dramaturges, producers) which give their services to children and people with disabilities. The total number of children that we are working with at the moment is 120, 2,5 to 26 years old.
More than 400 children and young with disabilities not only from Serbia, but from the Balkan region (BIH, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia) passed through our projects from our establishment.
We stand for the inclusion that is not only „including in persons with disability “, but also creating and organizing different common shared activities, where they can feel like honored and useful members of society, and which their peers of typical population can enjoy as well.
Therefore, our main cause is to show good practice and to create as many didactic materials that will be used by parents, experts, teachers and everybody else that has someone with developmental disability around him. It is very important to us that, besides ideas, we encourage motivation for working and socialization with people with disabilities.
MAGICAL VILLAGE
New Year’s inclusive musical
11th, 12th and 13th of December 2019
Opera and Theatre “Madlenianum” at 19h
“Magical Village” always has the same, but different topic of the most important night in the year. This time, you will see Santa Clause that awakes too early for famous “Santa-flying” which causes trouble for everyone in the village. But, Mrs. Clause is always there to help to stop the time with her magical got chocolate. Will Santa fly on time and is everything is going to be ready for the New Year’s Eve?
There are 62 children and young with different developmental disabilities in the performance.
Other Projects
Musical CD for speech development – 2018
Project “Musical CD for speech development” is created from 20 musical pieces of simple everyday language that is sang by children. This project is specific for the thing that it is sang by 46 children with speech problems, which were helped by this method to improve their social skills and have a faster development of motoric skills.
Topics that the project processed:
- I sing to know the worked around me (body parts, occupations, animals, colors…)
- I sing to show how I feel
- I sing to make friends
- I sing to answer the questions (social questions, who, what, how, where, why…)
- I sing to say what I am learning (functions of the objects, seasons, opposites…)
- I sing to take care of my body (shower, washing hands and teeth…)
Misunderstood – 2018
We took a next step with this project and we used the art in practical use in a way to show how children and young with difficulties see the world around them. Showing the best of their talents could help their peers change their prejudices and could lower criteria of typical population.
The Wizards – documentary movie 2017
It wouldn’t be anything strange that group of children is preparing the theatre play by the motives of “The Wizard of Oz”. This novel already has had may performances and screens, and eternity of this story is true confirmation of universal message that it brings: searching for, metaphorically speaking, the brain, the courage and family, the characters are going through different temptations, so the search will end inside of themselves. “The Wizards”, the movie with atmosphere, following the preparation of the theater play “Little Red Shoes” tried to explain the inner world of children with disabilities, which are the actors of this movie. Through form of musical, the action follows the creative process and through characters and their problems, demystifies the inner drama of the actors themselves.
Little Red Shoes – inclusive musical 2016
This performance was created by motives of “The Wizard of Oz”, which premier was held in Opera and Theatre “Madlenianum” in May 2016. We also participated with “Little Red Shoes” at International Festival of Children’s Theatre Kotor, Montenegro and National service RTS made TV adaptation.
Alice in Wonderland – inclusive musical for children 2013
Our first musical which we performed 10 times in Belgrade in Children’s Cultural Center Beograd in front of over 4000 kids. We had guest performances in Krusevac, Serbia and on International Festival for Children’s Theatre Kotor, Montenegro 2014. National service RTS recognized our projects as something that has national value and taped TV adaptation.
Seminar “Music and speech development”
The topic of this seminar is influence of music and her practical use in the work with children, which is specifically applied to children of untypical development and children with speech problems. If you apply for the seminar, you will get didactic material: 2 CD with different music lessons for developing speech and total of 120 minutes of music. All participants will be fully trained to use the given material in their further work with children. This CD is not distributed in sales. All songs and lessons are sung by children with developmental disabilities.
The teacher of this seminar is Ksenija Mirkovic, which is the author of this CD as well. Ksenija was born in Belgrade 1978. She finished instrumental (violin) and theoretical department of Music School “Josip Slavenski”, after what she completed Philosophical Faculty of Belgrade’s University.
Ksenija starts her work with children with developmental disabilities 2001, as an associate of Elementary School for children with special needs “Anton Skala” in Belgrade. Together with Association Autism Serbia, she starts music workshop. Ksenija is the author of all compositions on the first recorded CD sung by children with autism “Fairy’s song” produced by RTS.
In 2012 Ksenija founded “A Little School for Music”, a center where children and young with disabilities learn to play an instrument or develop a speech. She is one of the founders of Association for affirmation of children’s creation “Svitac”.
Ksenija is composer and author of next musical instruments: Peter Pan 2012, Alice in Wonderland 2013, Little Red Shoes 2015, Magical Pot – New Year’s musical 2017, Misunderstood 2018 and Magical Village 2019.
She wrote the music for documentary movie “The Wizards” filmed in cooperation with RTS, and which tells us a story about children with different speech and developmental disabilities.
Our Donators
- Swiss Cooperation office in Serbia
- The Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs of Serbia
- Ministry of Culture of Serbia
- Ministry of Justice of Serbia
- Secretariat for Social Welfare Belgrade
- Secretariat for Culture
- Erste Bank
- Total Serbia
- Maxima
- Converse
- Freeway
- Andjela boja
- Riko doo
Our Partners
- Children’s Cultural Center “Majdan”
- Children’s Cultural Center “Beograd”
- Public Service RTS
- Opera and Theatre “Madlenianum”
- Theatre “Pinokio”
- Cultural Center “Čukarica “
- Kotor Festival of Theatre for Children, Montenegro
- Association „Ruku na srce “– Sarajevo, BIH