Building Tools for Resilience with Theatre
The Erasmus+ project Caring4Careworkers (CARE²) addresses the emotional and structural challenges faced by social and care workers across Europe. Care workers are at the heart of our societies, yet they often experience burnout, isolation, team conflicts, and systemic undervaluing of their work. CARE² uses Theatre of the Oppressed as a creative and participatory method to explore these struggles and develop sustainable solutions.
What we do
- Research through theatre: Together with care and social workers in Austria, Germany, and Ireland, we investigate the daily realities of precarious care work and bring them to the stage through participatory performances.
- Festival of Care (Vienna, 2025): An international gathering where forum theatre performances, workshops, and discussions create space for dialogue, reflection, and solidarity across borders.
- Digital Playbook & Workshops: A practical resource with theatre-based methods for resilience, conflict resolution, and supervision in care work, designed for long-term use in education and professional training.
- European networking: Building stronger connections between care workers, educators, and organisations to share best practices and foster collective empowerment.
Our goals
- Make visible the struggles and invisible labour of care workers.
- Strengthen the resilience, health, and safety of those working in care.
- Create practical tools that improve daily working conditions.
- Connect local experiences to European-level collaboration and advocacy.
Who benefits
- Care and social workers: as primary participants and co-creators.
- Educators & students in social and care work: gaining access to innovative training tools.
- Patients and society as a whole: benefiting from healthier, more resilient care structures.
Local Research Process
Theater der Unterdrückten Wien: Legislative Theatre against sexism in hospitals
Facing discrimination or sexist behavior in a stressful working context such as working in the hospital can intensify psychological harm as it acts as an additional stressor. Therefore it is important to constantly tackle discrimination to buil resilience and better working conditions.
In our research process we ask: How can we ensure a sexism-free work environment in hospitals? We use Legislative Theatre to make barriers visible and work with decision makers on concrete change. Find out more about the local process and how to participate here.
Dreaming OPEnly: Rainbow of Desire with social workers
Theatre for Change Galway: Forum theatre with care workers
Festival of Care
A multi-day gathering of care workers from across Europe, the Festival of Care showcases plays using different methods from the theatre of the oppressed, as well as organizing workshops, to address the challenges of care and social work. The event provides a platform for dialogue, civic engagement, and transnational exchange—uniting theatre practitioners, social workers, and care professionals to imagine new solutions together. More infos can be found here.
Playbook
CARE² is coordinated by Theater der Unterdrückten Wien (Austria) in partnership with Dreaming OPEnly (Germany) and Theatre for Change Galway (Ireland). Together, we create spaces where care workers can reflect, resist, and reimagine – so that caring for others doesn’t come at the expense of caring for oneself.
Dreaming OPEnly e.V. is a youth organisation born in 2020 and based in Leipzig, Germany, focused on offering learning and mobility opportunities to young people, especially those facing barriers and fewer opportunities. Our objective is to facilitate transformative change through non-formal education, critical thinking and artistic expression. We are advocates of the role of individuals in bringing about social change, which can lead to fairer and more sustainable societies. We are passionate about Art, Theatre, Gamification, and sustainability, and include these elements in the projects that we implement. More info on their website: https://dreamingopenly.com/.
Theatre for Change (TforC) Galway Ireland, was formed in Galway in 2010 to train youth workers, social workers and educators to use TforC in their professions and become facilitators / spread the tools of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. TforC’s vision is to develop and promote opportunities for creative engagement, creative expression and dialogue that supports personal capacity building to bring about personal, community and social change that address the social injustices within which people live. More infos can be found here: https://tfcg.ie/
Our cooperation partners:
Our funders:
Co-Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or OeAD-GmbH. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
