Last month saw full houses and an amazing experience in which young people from age 6 to adult demonstrated what can be achieved with hard work and co-operation. Journeys To Freedom was both unique and stimulating. If only those readers who have commented on Fran Bardsley's article (March 17) had experienced this for themselves for they seem to be missing the point as to why we would engage participants from the community in such a project. Journeys was a contribution to the year-long celebrations commemorating the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Celebrating other people’s cultures and history is not saying one is more important than another.

Trevor Philips, Chair of the Equality & Human Rights Commission, wrote this in his introduction to our programme:

“My great great grandmother was born into slavery and lived under the slave name of Happy. Perhaps this was her owner's idea of a joke. Like all the descendants of the 12 million and more Africans whose ancestors were kidnapped, brutalised and slaughtered our family has waited for centuries for someone in Europe just to acknowledge what was done to us. We will never have our true names back. We can never really be compensated. The most we can do is to keep the stories alive and make sure the lessons learned will never be forgotten.”

Or this parent: “I am very grateful to you that (my child) had a chance to see the productions and learn from them!”

And to paraphrase a teenager in the audience: "after seeing the performance, I feel I want to do something more with my life than just hang out with my friends."

That's why projects like Journeys is important, taking centuries of painful history and making them relevant to the lives of people in Oxford today. Not to beat anyone over the head to but to enable us to understand the world and our role within it. A world shaped by people through struggle for freedom, equality and justice. Theatre has a role to play in how it portrays these struggles, enabling young and old to think, question and debate whilst being entertained at the same time. By so doing, we are playing our part in trying to establish a more socially just and fair society for all.