Refugee Children, Performance-Based Activities, and the Primary Years Programme

Laurent Ditmann is a reformed college professor and a former businessman and management consultant. He holds advanced degrees in French Literature, English Literature, and American History from both French and American institutions. In 2006, he joined the staff of the International Community School, a K-6 charter school for refugee children located near Atlanta, Georgia. He is slated to become the school's second principal in July 2008.

With a primary background in Drama, Bill Moon has over 40 years of educational experience as school principal in France, Greece, Luxembourg, and the US as well as decades of involvement with the IB. He came to Atlanta to serve as head of the elementary school at the Atlanta International School. He left AIS in 2002 to create the International Community School, a charter school for refugee children that received its authorization to offer the Primary Years Programme in 2008. Having recently stepped down as Principal of ICS, he has put his talent as a storyteller at the disposal of the ICS development team.

Christina Shunnarah has over a decade of experience working with refugees, both adults and children. After her tenure at Refugee Family Services of Georgia, she joined the staff of the International Community School in Decatur in 2002. She is currently the Kindergarten Coordinator at ICS and also teaches classes in Educational Sociology at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, the institution that granted her a master's degree in Teaching. She is interested in ways of supporting refugee children's growth through the arts.

Francie Wallace has been teaching ESOL to refugee students since 1998. At the International Community School in Decatur, she has also taught Research and Debate as well as Speech and Drama electives to fifth and sixth graders. Storytelling, writing, and performance are at the core of her Primary Years Programme curriculum. In 1990, she wrote, co-directed, and danced in Hope Held Captive, a multi-language work about Rigoberta Menchu performed at Atlanta's 7 Stages theatre. Ms Wallace is also a published poet, collaborating with other artists to create a mythological paradigm for performance to help raise consciousness about the health of our planet.