On Monday 9 December, local residents and stakeholders were invited to an art exhibition in Fearon Hall in Loughborough following a project that was started by one of LPT’s Neighbourhood Leads.
Titled “Threads – Stitch Stories and Identity” the event is the culmination of the project that was completed by the women over a number of months, where they have used embroidery and other forms of textile craft to tell their stories and their dreams of the future.
The women are part of a group of people from Afghanistan, who worked in support of our objectives in their country. All are ‘Entitled Persons’ (EPs) which means that they are granted an indefinite leave to remain in the UK. They are being housed for a temporary period at Garats Hay, Woodhouse Eaves, but some families have been waiting up to a year to be allocated their new homes, something that was taking a toll on their mental health.
Sarah Jones, LPT’s mental health lead for Charnwood noticed the decline. She said: “This community has faced huge challenges in recent months. Moving to a new country as their own had become unsafe for them and facing an uncertain future, we knew that the risk to their mental health was huge, and we could already see how they were coping with trauma. I started to work with our Integrated Care Board (ICB) to pull a project together to help the whole community – the men, women and children – to feel supported, safe and settled.”
The programme of support included a holistic health and wellbeing programme for individuals living at Garats Hay. This included emotional regulation and resilience for children; physical activity for all; creative arts; and mental health and wellbeing support for adults.
One participant, Marina aged 14, spoke to about her dreams of the future, one day ahead of starting at school: “I have been here for almost a year and am finally starting school tomorrow and am so excited to get an education. I am do sad for my sisters at home who can’t do this. One day I want to be an astronaut.”
All the projects were delivered by four voluntary sector partners, one of which was the art project which is the focus of the event on Monday. Community projects curator, Jacqui Gallon from Time, Place and Memory, led the art project which involved weekly sessions with a group of women and a children’s group, both starting in April.
Jacqui said: “This project has been a joy to work on. The women and children feel safe as needlework is central to their culture, so the activity reminds them of their home. One woman arrived here with little more than an embroidered voile curtain made for her by her mother in the 1980s as she sat on her knee. What makes this even more poignant is that it was made under the previous Taliban regime when women’s freedoms were curtailed, and it depicts birds and flowers which represented freedom to her mother.”
This curtain and the artwork created from the project will be on display with the artists at Fearon Hall on Monday. They will be joined by the three other projects leads from Leicester City Football in the Community; The People’s Buddhi and Regul8.
Leicester City in the Community ran a weekly football programme which culminated in a trip for 49 adults and children to visit King Power Stadium to watch LCFC women versus Crystal Place Women.
Jo McSHarry, from Leicester City in the Community, said: “It was a pleasure to be part of this programme over the weeks and then to host them at the community hub on match day. It was particularly good to the see the kids have so much fun, joining in the chants and meeting Filbert Fox”.
The final two projects were led by Regul8 and the People’s Buddhi. Loughborough based Regul8 promote mental health and well-being among children, young people, and families in Leicestershire. It focuses on a range of services aimed at enhancing emotional awareness, self-regulation, and social-emotional learning for children and young people. They ran lots of different sessions with the children that included Box Breathing, Circe of Control and board games for fun that are focused on logic and reasoning.
Ben Rhodes, from Regul8, said: “The Circle of Control worksheet was a big hit, especially with the 12-15 year olds. They were so proud to show me how their English has improved, and they really got the concept. There was this touching moment when someone mentioned their home country – everyone felt sad together but then they said “that’s out of our control” – showing they’re really understanding and using these ideas. This doesn’t ‘fix’ anything but can alter the way we view or perceive our world.”
The People’s Buddhi provides holistic approach to emotional, mental health, physical and overall wellbeing for all ages. They ran separate sessions for men and women which included mindfulness, heartfulness, kindfulness and life coaching using creative arts to support emotional, mental health, physical and overall wellbeing.