Irena Mateliene is the head of the Communication and Culture Department at Rokiškis District Municipality Administration, where she encourages the community’s cultural growth while implementing national cultural policy in the municipality. She is responsible for the municipality's public communication, tourism, cultural services, international relations and transnational cooperation projects, preparing an advisory framework regarding state culture and tourism policy implementation at the local level. She was previously a lecturer for a cultural management studies program and a project manager at a primary school in Rokiskis City.
This project encouraged children to think about social problems and possible solutions to them. Over a six-week period, some 130 students ages 6 to 11 years old were engaged in discussions around critical social issues such as intolerance, violence, and xenophobia. After reading a story focused on those issues, students were encouraged to reflect on them, and to use specially developed materials to raise questions and propose possible solutions.
This project helped foster discussion and reflection in the classroom between students with and without disabilities. Four theater artists, 3 counselors, 32 teachers and 490 students were engaged with the project in Rokiskis District, Lithuania. Four child-sized puppets played the roles of disabled children that attend ordinary lessons in the classroom, familiarizing students with the special needs of their peers. These lessons encouraged reflections and discussion in schools and in the students’ families. In a follow-up survey, 75% of respondent teachers said they were encouraged to revise their teaching methods for children with disabilities.
Irena participated in the IVLP Project Promoting Social Change through the Arts in 2021, organized by the U.S. Department of State and FHI 360. She also participated in the IVLP Project Promoting Social Change through the Arts in 2022, organized by the U.S. Department of State and the Mississippi Consortium for International Development.
Irena's exchange experience led to the development of her IVLP Impact Award Project: "A question is a tool of democracy and a spark for social change."
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