Brighter Zine
‘In both child and adult refugees and asylum seekers, creative arts activities have been found to decrease anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress.’ - Source: World Health Organisation
Since 2010 the UK government has launched policies that aim to make life so unbearable for undocumented migrants that they leave. Refugees and asylum seekers face an increasingly hostile environment and it’s no wonder that in the UK ‘rates of PTSD and depression are substantially higher among asylum seekers and refugees, compared to the general population’.
Brighter Futures are a group of young migrants fighting against the system that oppresses them, supported by Kazzum Arts and Praxis Community projects every Wednesday evening. Our facilitators meet with the group to build positive mental wellbeing, build relationships, regulate from stress, cook and eat together and build campaigns for social change, allthrough creative arts activities.
“There was a lot of positive vibes throughout the project – we’re talking about joy gratitude, not about issues. For a moment you feel your problems are gone.”
Many different studies have shown that creativity is a driver for better mental health, and ‘engagement in arts activities can positively impact forcibly displaced people, as well as their host community, by promoting social inclusion, social cohesion, social acceptance and belonging.’ In our work we use creative workshops to enable children and young people who have been impacted by trauma and adversity to feel seen, heard and valued. Our trauma-informed approach uses a number of protective factors to reinforce the value that our workshops can add.
This year, we worked with the members of Brighter Futures on a Creative Zine project. The group explored eight positive emotions: Joy, Hope, Serenity, Gratitude, Pride, Interest, Awe and Love, inspired by Barbara Fredrickson’s research. The young people centered themselves and their experiences within the artwork and poetry that they created over a series of weeks, reflecting on where these positive emotions were apparent in their lives.
“The artwork helped me to find peaceful moments. Listening to others’ stories made me feel good – it was funny and some stories related to myself.”
In May 2024 we celebrated the Brighter Zine with an event at our home in Oxford House, where the young people from Brighter Futures read pieces of their poetry, sang songs and talked to an audience of over 75 people about what the process meant to them. It may be considered radical to see young migrants as forces for positivity, and we are inspired by the members of the group, who are so much more than the hostile environment around them and who are believers of change.
If you would like to find out more about our Brighter Zine project have a look at our recently created evaluation report.
This project was generously funded by Comic Relief and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
For more information visit www.brighterfutureslondon.co.uk
