Creative writing and visual art project celebrating refugees and asylum seekers
Arts and culture are powerful tools through which to explore sometimes complex issues while also allowing us to find connections as human beings. A project currently running in Bradford is a perfect example of how creativity can open doors to understanding and empathy.
You’re Welcome is a creative project working with three primary schools in Bradford celebrating refugees and sanctuary seekers through poetry and visual art. The project is being delivered by Word Up North, a Bradford-based arts charity that promotes and develops creative writing and reading across the north of England, in partnership with the BBC’s Contains Strong Language poetry festival and Bradford 2025 City of Culture.
For centuries Bradford has been welcoming people from all over the world and in 2010 became one of the first places in the UK to be recognized as a City of Sanctuary. All the schools selected to take part in You’re Welcome – Hoyle Court Primary School in Shipley, Eastwood Community Primary School in Keighley and Westminster CE Primary Academy in Bradford – have School of Sanctuary status in recognition of their good practice in creating a culture of welcome, belonging and solidarity for those seeking safety.
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Congolese-British singer songwriter and storyteller Furaha Mussanzi is a facilitator on the project alongside poet and novelist Rachel Bower and visual artist Emma Denby. Bradford-based Mussanzi, who came to the UK with her family as a child from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo 20 years ago, has lived experience of seeking sanctuary. “We felt it was really important to bring lived experience to the project,” she says. “I share pictures of me growing up in Congo and talk about what it was like to live there during the war. And also, about the good things that happened. I tell them about what it felt like to migrate and the different emotions associated with that. Then I talk about some of the places that I felt welcome when me and my family arrived in the UK. My primary school and church were places where I felt safe, and we had supportive and welcoming neighbours. I talk about the importance and power of community.”
In the workshops, the students were encouraged by Mussanzi and Bower to create poems in response to the idea of what it means to be and feel welcomed. “We were blown away by the students’ engagement,” says Mussanzi. “Their writing about their own experience was so powerful and they were keen to learn and think about the themes of welcome and community. I was really impressed by their passion and willingness to have a go.”
In the coming weeks the students will be working with visual artist Emma Denby to create designs of their written work to share and print onto coir welcome mats. The mats will be fabricated into a welcome sculpture that will be displayed during the BBC’s Contains Strong Language festival in September, as part of Bradford 2025. This is not Mussanzi’s first involvement with the City of Culture, back in January she performed in the opening ceremony Rise, singing a solo with Bradford’s Friendship Choir. Founded in 2016 the choir describes itself as ‘a joyful singing sanctuary open to everyone’ which welcomes and supports refugees and asylum seekers to ‘celebrate our diversity through the power of song’. “It was an amazing experience and it felt like a full circle moment for me because the city means so much to me,” says Mussanzi. “The Friendship Choir has been really important for me. It meets every week and is made up of refugees and asylum seekers; music has helped me to heal. I am finding my voice again.” She has already released three singles and is hoping to release her EP in September.
Mussanzi’s hope for the You’re Welcome project is that it has a lasting impact going forward. “I hope that it plants a seed in the students’ minds of how they can be a person of peace and welcome and that the sessions have helped them to think about how being welcoming can have such a positive impact on someone else’s life,” she says. “It is empowering for them to know that their actions matter, because we are living in an incredibly divided society. There is a lot of toxic narrative around others and a lot of othering. It’s important that we educate the younger generation; and they understand it, particularly the age they are at – they are curious and they do want to make a difference in the world.”
Contains Strong Language, the UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival, comes to Bradford, September 18-21, as part of Bradford 2025 City of Culture. The welcome sculpture will be on display September 20 & 21.