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Welcome to Surya Arts!

Surya Arts is a professional team of Artists and Facilitators. Our core aim is to promote The Rights of the Child, in particular we like to raise awareness of Article 31 UN Convention on the rights of the Child: Children’s right to play and to have access to culture and arts.

Our main activity is a TIE programme called Surya’s Story which looks at the issues of Fairtrade and the Rights of the Child. We work with schools, communities and at Festivals and are happy to devise other projects alongside Surya’s Story and to work with other partners – we are very flexible!

After a sell-out tour in 2014, Surya Arts and Unity-in-Vision are back taking Surya’s Story to children and young people in Poole, Bournemouth and West Dorset. This has been made possible thanks to support from Bournemouth, Poole, and West Dorset Councils, WAVE, and funding from The Cooperative.

What audiences say about Surya’s Story:

“These days it is rare to find a school hall magically transformed by a group of travelling players, bringing laughter, excitement, and food for thought. Surya’s Story does just this.”

Award winning children’s author Beverley Naidoo

“I’ve been working six years and it was the best performance I have ever seen; interactive and engaging.”

Samantha Johnson, Teacher Prince of Wales School, Dorchester

Surya’s Story

In 1998, Christian Aid organised a Global March Against Child Labour. Children from all over the world walked to Geneva to raise awareness of the rights of the child. That march inspired Sharon Muiruri to write a theatre-in-education play called Child of the World.

Surya’s Story is a self-contained play set in India, taken from Child of the World. Set in the village of Masalpur, in the State of Rajastan, Surya is a young girl who works long hours sewing footballs. One day, a fantastic dancer visits the village and completely transforms Surya’s outlook. Captivated by what she sees, she stops sewing. This angers the middleman, who hits her across the hand. Surya runs away from her village and joins a march demanding better conditions for child labourers. Her mother is very sad and blames herself for all the responsibilities she put on her daughter.

Even today, many children are still working in terrible circumstances so the play is as significant and relevant as ever. Only recently in Bangladesh, over 1,000 people being exploited on very low wages were killed and many more injured when the unsafe building they had to work in collapsed. Surya’s Story looks at our responsibilities as consumers in the West and looks at the issues of Fair Trade and the Rights of the Child.

The play is an inter-active Theatre in Education (TIE) programme performed by a full Asian cast featuring the wonderful actor and storyteller Pardip Kumar, emerging actress Satveer Pnaiser, fabulous Bhangra dancer Vinodh Mehay and the Dhol Drummer Kishan Balli.

Surya’s Story uses the theme of football as a wonderful way of engaging an audience about child labour and environmental issues. It encourages young people and adults to think about where footballs and other products come from and also shows how some children are exploited by the West in its quest to get cheap products and food.

For bookings and more information contact Sharon Muiruri: sjmuiruri@gmail.com