Father Patrick Shanahan and I met in Oxford at historian Terence Ranger's 'retirement' conference at St. Anthony's College. The founder of Street Child Africa, Patrick had been a priest in Ghana for 30 years. He was intrigued by my account of drama workshops with young offenders at Northcot in Zimbabwe. In 1999 he invited me to Accra to work with Catholic Action for Street Children and Street Girls' Aid. I helped the young people devise two plays based on their own experiences. Rik Walton documented the project and together we mounted 'Why should we tell our stories?', an exhibition of photographs and writing which toured galleries in the NE of England. We were particularly pleased when the British Council brought the exhibition back to Accra and Kumasi.
My daughter Rosa Stourac McCreery accompanied me in 2000 and a further 3 plays were created with young people at CAS, SAID and Hopelands. We also ran drama workshops for pre-school children in a number of SAID crèches and offered training to staff.