Projects
Our varied projects, short to long term, come from our participants ideas and input
Objects and Patchwork Stories - Part of Stitch for Change 2022
What image or object would you use to represent a memory or experience in your past? This project invites members of the community to come together to share and sew – no experience necessary!
This project is a collaboration between Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and The Refugee Buddy Project.
There will be fortnightly workshops between February and June at Hastings Museum where we’ll each create a patchwork square featuring an object or image which tells part of our individual story. The patchwork squares will be displayed in the museum over the summer, including Refugee Week and the Hastings Sanctuary Festival.
Crossings: Community and Refuge Until 5th December 2021
We have been working with Hastings Museum & Art Gallery in the lead up to this exhibition. Syrian/Kurdish artist, Helen Dodaki, seeking refuge here in Hastings, has been delivering art workshops to the refugee and migrant communities living in Hastings. The artwork produced at these workshops will be on show too, for the duration of the exhibition.
We also co-produced a film with Hastings Museum, capturing people’s reactions to the exhibition. Fatima Esayli presenter on the film made by Fizzel Castro who made the wonderful banner drop film for us last year. The short film will form part of the exhibition.
Stitch for Change: All In The Same Storm Pandemic Patchwork Stories Ongoing
Stitch For Change was a project that responded to the current public health crisis by creating an online space for people to come together and find a collective voice. Social Distancing, Isolation, Lockdown: so many people were (and many still are) living in fear and anxiety, while frontline workers – often the lowest paid – are taking risks to help, feed and heal the sick and vulnerable. At the same time we were witnessing communities come together to help each other through this crisis.
We received 95 patchwork squares from people across the community, including those seeking refuge, volunteers, and students from a Hastings-based FE College, and the Project culminated in an exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill from May 19-August 30 2021.
The quilts are now in storage and will be hung in our new Community Café.
Mothers Day Video March 2021
Made in collaboration with Buddy Leigh Malaihollo, with art donated by Lily De Kergeriest Gutierrez, this video conveys the messages of people seeking refuge in our community who cannot see their mothers on Mother’s Day.
Stories of Resilience April Oct 2021
Part of the Refugee Action Good Practice network, we developed a film in response to their call for stories of resilience from their partners across the UK. Developed and filmed by our participant Fatima Esayli in collaboration with Leigh Malaihollo and local animator Sarah Gomes Harris, it tells the story of Buddying during lockdown.
#RefugeesWelcome Collaborative Online Campaign Apr-Aug 2020
In response to requests from our volunteers and supporters for easy to access facts and information about what it is like to seek refuge in the UK, we commissioned local animator Sarah Gomes Harris to develop 17 images for social media. These images were shared on a weekly basis across our social media platforms, and we encouraged other organisations in our sector as well as individuals to get involved, alongside the hashtag #RefugeesWelcome
This online campaign was successful in engaging people in our messages and myth-busting about the lives of people seeking refuge in the UK, and the images are still widely circulated on Facebook especially when local press reports come out about people arriving in small boats from Calais.
Kurdish Song Mar 2021
This project was led by one of our Kurdish friends, and facilitated by a practitioner for Barefoot Opera. It involved coordination from our Café Manager and IT/technical support from a very skilled media expert who is a Buddy. A core group of Buddies spent time learning the song, Hoi Hergiz, a traditional Kurdish song. It was then decided to open up the invitation to sing with us, to our friends and all the Buddies. People recorded themselves singing and then sent the videos to our technically experienced buddy who put the piece together.