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Importance of Ritual
Haitian Welcome Song
Mwen byen kontan Fré mwen
Ou vini Lakay mwen
Map baw you gwo Lanmen
Kanpe, Chita
Fe you ti Souri, Ha Ha Ha Ha
Rituals:
Create a threshold for a community space
Build community
Create safety
Promote healing
Teach values
What is ritual? Ritual is a series of ceremonial actions that are performed to help transition, heal, believe, and celebrate. For example, every night you may brush your teeth, wash, and read in bed to relax and transition into sleep. This is a daily ritual. An example of a life ritual is a wedding. The bride and the groom follow a series of ceremonial actions that help them and their families celebrate their union and transition into married life.
Every activity for children should be a ritual with the same structure every day. Rituals are important to helping children feel safe and feel like they belong. Rituals help create emotionally safe, child-friendly spaces. They decrease anxiety and engage the brain and emotions. Rituals help children get ready to learn and make them feel like they are a part of a community. Rituals can also teach history, tradition, and values. Rituals are healing too. For example, singing the same song every morning can be comforting for children because it gives them a sense that life is predictable and that they are a part of a special community. The diagram on the next page describes an example of a child-safe activity ritual.
Child-safe Activity Ritual:
Greeting
A greeting welcomes children into the space. Each child should be greeted with their name one by one by the adults as they enter. This makes children feel wanted and valued. Even if the space has no door, they feel like they are entering a safe space with caring adults. They are crossing a threshold into this special community.
A Beginning Ritual
A beginning ritual helps children stop thinking about the outside world and start focusing on the activities. A beginning ritual should include an opening experience, a motto, and rules. All children should be able to participate in all parts of the beginning ritual. The opening experience could be a song, dance, or action. It should be the same every day and should provide an opportunity for participants to learn something about each other and develop a common community. After the opening, leaders should involve children in creating and reciting the motto and rules.
An Art-making Experience
The art-making experience begins after the beginning ritual. Children learn and create different things each day. This is the only part of the session that changes daily.
A Closing Ritual
An ending ritual closes the time together and helps children transition and be ready to leave. An ending ritual should include recitation of the motto and a closing experience that all children can participate in together like a song, dance, or farewell gesture. The same ending ritual should be repeated after each session.
A Parting
A parting helps children move from the activity space to the outside world. Adults should say goodbye to each child by name individually as they cross the threshold of the space.
Mottos
One way to begin a child-safe activity is with a short saying that all children read or say out loud together. This is called a motto. A motto is repeated at every gathering to remind children of values and boundaries, and create a sense of community. Each community group should write their own motto that reflects their group values. For example, the Young Haitian Leaders motto below was written by a group of Haitain youth as a part of an arts-based youth leadership training in Philadelphia, PA., USA. What values do you hear in the Young Haitian Leaders and Haitian coat of arms below? What values would you like to reinforce in your community motto?
Example: Making Mottos Meaningful
Based on an interview with a Community Artist
BuildaBridge Motto:
I will do my best with all that is my power
And with the help of my community
To learn all that I can learn
To surround myself with people who want what is best for me
To respect myself and my body
To build bridges of peace and hope
In order to have the good life that I deserve
A motto focuses attention on different things, but the important part of the motto is how the leader uses it to expand understanding. The leader shows what is sacred in the motto. Children can say the words in the motto, but not understand the deeper message. In the BuildaBridge motto we recite “the good life that I deserve” but what does that mean? When you first ask children what does “the good life that I deserve” look like, they say “I want to be a millionaire and have a big house” or “I want to be a famous dancer like Beyoncé.” When the leader starts to ask questions they get deeper answers. Leaders ask what really matters and then children say things like “family, being in love, being happy.” When leaders dig deeper, they learn that having a big house really means having a sacred space that belongs to you. A child might start thinking about what color they want the walls in their room to be. Eventually they start to understand a home as a place where you come in from the cold and are warmed by love. This is the real meaning of the good life. Leaders need to help children explore these ideas of home and the good life to make mottos meaningful. As one child said “Home is the place where you are safe, where you can think about yourself, where you can grow.” Creative safe spaces for children are like homes—safe places where you can think about yourself and where you can grow.
Experience:
Goal: Practice planning a child-safe activity ritual
Use the sheet below to plan out your program for 3 days. Remember what a ritual is and what it should include.
Experience: Ritual Making
Goal: Write a beginning and ending ritual that reinforces group values and safe spaces
Work in a group to write a motto with values for a beginning ritual. Write your motto below. Teach the motto to all of the groups in the room.
Values: ________________________________________________
Opening Motto:
Opening Song:
Work in a group to write a short song for your opening experience that includes opportunities to learn about the people in your group. Write the song below and preform it for all of the groups in the room.
Opening Song:
Ending Ritual:
Work in a group to create a farewell gesture for the closing experience in your ending ritual. Describe it below in words and images.
Reflection: Rituals
Perform your farewell gesture. How does this gesture make you feel?
Does the closing part of your ritual relate to the opening part?
What rituals do you notice in the organization of this workbook?
How do these rituals help you learn?
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