Special Projects

Every year, Salusbury World seeks opportunities to work with specialist organisations to deliver creative projects for young people in our partner schools.
Current/recent collaborations include:

English PEN

For the third year, we will be collaborating with English PEN in the Brave New Voices project, funded by John Lyon’s Charity.

This brings together writers, poets and newly-arrived young refugees and asylum-seekers in a celebration of creativity, translation and multilingualism. Students in Capital City Academy and Newman Catholic College have enjoyed a run of workshops with established poets, Simon Mole and Raymond Antrobus. At the end of each year beautiful anthologies are published and launched at a celebratory event at the Free Word Centre.

https://www.englishpen.org/tag/brave-new-voices/

Word Bridges

World Bridges is a fantastic example of our work with English PEN. The World Bridges event was a performance by a group of young refugee migrant writers on the 24th of June. Students from Capital City Academy premiered their work and shared the stage with Rosemary Harris and Tanaka Mhishi in an attempt to create bridges across barriers and make connections between young people struggling through difficult challenges.

Poem by Rosemary Harris about her students

Base Camp

For Dana, Faadimah, Ibtissam, Maryam, Mohamed, Rawan, Rui, Sajeda, Sayeda, Sujoud and Tarek.

You are a mountaineer.

Throughout the night, you climb

The airless heights of new language.

From your base camp bed,

its pillow plumped with snow,

you lace up your exhausted boots,

fold your inedible map,

and ascend into your mind,

under a sky locked into silent cloud.

Difficult syllables wait to trip you.

Misunderstanding holds its breath,

creaks its avalanche warning.

You cannot afford to risk

mistakes in the darkness.

You carry no oxygen.

There is no respite.

You are ice and alone.

Your learning tongue tries to shape itself

around the impossible stones

you find in your mouth.

You stare at the sky as a stranger.

You have followed the night into first light

where the clouds unknit,

where the waking sun

exposes the sheer

face of your future,

the peaks dwarfing the dawn.

You have risen to meet the mountain,

the horizon your deepest breath.

You plant your bright flag at the top of the world.

You will fly all the colours of your family.

You have sung yourself into the sky.

You will dream yourself into voice.

The quality of what we have achieved together has only been possible because of the bedrock of Salusbury World’s amazing work.

Rosemary Harris

Harmonise:

Run by musicaction.org

This project uses music in the classroom to build understanding towards refugees, and people of all backgrounds.

It’s a remarkable programme of music workshops which improve emotional wellbeing and build confidence among refugee pupils and their peers through fun, inclusive music activity. Music facilitators from refugee backgrounds share their stories and music with pupils, and support children to create original music in response.

One of the children from @SalusburySchool tells us why it was important in the Harmonise sessions to sing songs in other languages during @RefugeeWeek!

Thank you to Salusbury Primary School & @SalusburyWORLD for the video!#refugeeweek2018 #music #languages #connect #Harmonise pic.twitter.com/XAM3rzDCqF
— Music Action Int (@MusicActionInt) July 19, 2018

Exodus

Run by Scarabeus Aerial Theatre, http://www.scarabeus.co.uk/ . This project ‘Take Part’ brings together groups of migrant and non-migrant communities to aid communication, improve understanding and challenge negative perceptions around refugee arrivals. Participants also develop physical and creative skills using exciting and inspirational aerial techniques.

Refugee Week

www.refugeeweek.org.uk This annual celebration in June is an important part of the Salusbury World calendar and we organise a wide variety of activities, visits, collaborations & creative workshops.

Headliners

We are collaborating with https://www.headliners.org/ in an exciting project which will use creative photography and journalism techniques with young asylum seekers and refugees in a series of one-off workshops and projects to empower them to express themselves and tell their stories.

We will co-produce a patchwork of media content with the young people that captures their individual voices and highlights the stories that they want to tell in their own words. The work may showcase their interests, dreams and aspirations or it may be about the challenges they faced in the past or currently face now. Ultimately it will show young refugees as individuals.