, because it’s about so many things: the plight of refugees in the U.S., education, gender identity, bilingualism, mental illness, theatre, social justice.
Haff created the program 13 years ago and calls it “the sanctuary I built following a breakdown caused by bipolar depression." It’s also a refuge for the kids who attend – it was christened Still Waters in a Storm by a former student at Bushwick High School, where Haff was once a teacher. The book focuses on a project that Still Waters has been working on for the past four years: the development of the bilingual musicalcollaboratively written by the kids themselves . Haff says they’ve performed it all across New York and beyond, “in the living rooms of the rich and poor,” on college campuses, and even in government offices, including various consulates and at New York City Hall.
Haff’s reference to child refugees from Mexico & Ecuador is probably about transit. Not really sources of refugees from there originally vs displaced & asylum seekers from other countries.