Wooly Folly

By this project, through creative workshops, we have popularised working with wool among children and youth. The goals of the project are:

1. To organise free time of youth and develop the need for organised spending of free time which develop creativity, and are oriented towards learning about and preserving nature and tradition of their native town;
2. To integrate children with special needs into a wider social community, strengthen them and allow them to acquire self-confirmation through creative work and socialisation;
3. To resolve a part of the ecological problem posed by discarded sheep wool on the Island of Cres and to indicate the possible ways in which the discarded wool may be used.

The project is implemented through creative workshops where children learn about the basics of felting techniques, spinning and weaving and then create their own world through socialisation, exchange of ideas and mutual assistance. Activities and topics follow the annual events cycle and an exhibition is organised upon termination a certain thematic workshop.
Field trips are organised, in addition to visits to sheep-farmers and picking medicinal herbs and learning about them, in order to recognise and understand efforts to preserve the population of griffon on the island (Ekocentar Beli). We also organise trips to Zagreb, to the Waldorf Fair, which has promoted handicrafts with natural materials for many years, We do this so that children may leave their social milieu and make new acquaintances and gain new experience.

FAMILIARISE CHILDREN — with forgotten and discarded treasures of the region they live in, the traditional skills of knitting, weaving and felting;

TEACH THEM TO MAKE AND ACT — through work and activities on the preparation of wool from shearing to a final product, all this on the basis of an active relationship towards nature preservation;

TEACH THEM HOW TO COEXIST — through joint work in a heterogeneous group on individual tasks and mutual assistance in the process of preparation and making of wool objects;

TEACH THEM ... TO BE — by respecting children and encouraging them to express their ideas; by helping them express themselves we wish to stimulate openness, creativity and self-respect.

My wool

Croatian wool resources have been completely forgotten: there is only one man who systematically buys up wool (and sends it for processing to Pakistan) and one wool-carding craft (which cards mostly synthetics). While hundreds of tonnes of domestic wool lie discarded, wool is imported ... a common Croatian story.

The objective of the project is to find ways to reactivate this resource, especially in small places, where wool processing once formed part of the tradition and of the local economy.

This will be achieved by means of the following activities:

• Make people aware of the problem of wool discarded in nature and start working on its resolution;
• Educate, in cooperation with experts, sheep-farmers to take care of sheep and the environment;
• Improve and facilitate, in the sense of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the technology for the processing of small amounts of wool by using some technique and experience and knowledge of others;
• By means of courses organised by the association teach more people to felt;
• Enrich the tourist offer by courses and exhibitions for tourist and original souvenirs;
• Participate in fairs and convey our experiences to communities with similar problems.

We encountered problems from the very beginning because we were deprived of space for storing and scouring wool. We gathered and sorted wool in the Ruta's work premises and took it to Lika to be scoured at the water-mill. This procedure was not sufficient to scour off the grease from the wool so we had to scour it once again in warm water. Unfortunately, wool processing still does not exist in Croatia. Moreover, a family wool-carding plant in Bjelovar, where wool could have been carded, closed its doors after four generations of craftsmen. We are currently in negotiations to send scoured wool for carding to Regeneracija Zabok. Although problems concerning wool processing remain unsolved, we have been very successful in making different objects and souvenirs, going to fairs and organising workshops for tourists.

Wool Theatre

About thirty pupils from the Cres' elementary school make up a core group which every year participates in Sheep Folly by learning the technique of felting, but also of sewing and knitting.

This year's task was to make a toy – modelled on an old and forgotten one, but of recycled material. Few of them made woollen dolls Anto and Bojica, and then, spontaneously and on their own initiative, made a short puppet show by using a loom as scenery. This story encouraged us to think about creating a real puppet theatre.

At the end of June the workshop leader participated at a gathering Puppet in the Teaching Process organised by the Educational Institute of the Republic of Croatia in Rijeka. In a three-day workshop she learned about types of puppets, technology of making puppets, basics of directing and animation. The acquired knowledge helped us make our own play.

Since the majority of children on Cres have never been in a real theatre, a visit to the Puppet Theatre in Rijeka was included in our project. We attended the closing of the Puppet Theatre review where they saw the play Tralala: The Clownishness of Growing Up. Later on, under the leadership of Lara Baduringa, they drew pictures in an art workshop. And finally, we organised a party and hanging out with puppets.

As an instructive basis for our play which is full of lively characters and therefore interesting to children, we have chosen the book Three-eyed by Vesna Krmpotić. Every week when we met, children heard the stories and then drew the characters. Mirjana Mauhar, a social pedagogist, was responsible for conveying the message of friendship and love from the book to children. She adjusted the text, shortened it and wrote the scrip.

The cooperation with the Rijeka Puppet Theatre continued. Sergio Dlačić, a director, born in Cres, instructed us on how to think about what is important in a play and how to show the play and the moral. We were visited by Luči Vidaković, a puppet maker, to see how we are doing and to advise us how to choose the puppets that are most suitable for children to handle. The puppet "ginjolka" was chosen.

When we had defined the characters, the felting workshops started where children made designs for dresses and other elements necessary for making puppets and the set. We divided the workshops into those for children up to 10 years old and those for older children. Everything felted by the children was formed into 14 puppets by Vesna Jakić, textile and clothes designer. She also created the set – she was helped by Snježana Sušić, pre-school teacher who set the songs from the play to music. Then, together with other workshop leaders, they started practicing the text and the animation of puppets.

The premises of the association were adjusted for the play; reflectors were installed, as well as rails for curtains and a coloured curtain. For invitations and for the poster we chose one of the children's drawings of the Three-eyed. The puppet animators were children from the 5th, 6th and 7th grade, and younger children sang. It was crowded as it should be on an opening night. About 30 children participated in the Theatre, among them 8 boys from the Children's Home. We performed twice in January and February so that all interested children and parents could see it.

Dance With Sheeps

Ruta made the costumes for Dance With Sheeps, and Koraki Cultural Tourism Association from Opatija made a musical piece about life on the Kvarner. The music is played on authentic instruments such as: harmonica, "sopilo" (native wind instrument), "šurlica" (woodwind instrument) and "meh" (bagpipes). A modern choreography was based on folk dances liburnian karst and Cres' wheel dance. The verses of our national chakavian poets, such as Drago Gervais, Zoran Kompanjet, Rikard Katalinić-Jeretov and others, were put on stage in modern theatre language, a lively Istrian, coastal music and original songs performed by dancers, actors and signers.

This modern ethno-play, besides representing a contribution to preservation and valuation of ethnic tradition, is an attractive tourist offer thematically related to the cultural heritage of Kvarner. We hope to be the first in line.

Dance With Sheeps was performed in Cress on the 11th and in Opatija on the 12th of December 2005. This partnership project was financed by CroNGO cooperation and community development programme.