The HATS Manual -> Background -> Outcomes

HATS has had a great impact in the St. Chris house for both participants and project workers. The impacts on participating individual seniors included increased self-esteem and sense of their role in the community, increased social support and increased comfort level with speaking out in public.

HATS senior players may have, as a result of immigration, lost their professional status, or experienced some other change of roles in their society, community, or family, such as the death of a spouse, change in living arrangements, change in economic status, etc.

Under this program, the senior players have been empowered with the realization of their new roles as public educators, and the importance of their role in their lives, community and in society at large. This idea is reflected in the following comment of a woman troupe player after a presentation at Ryerson Polytechnic University:

"Imagine, some of us never sat on a school bench when we were children and today we were teaching at a university!"