Posted By: Edward Cottrell, 04 October 2011
How would you feel if you had leave your home?
Our Strangers and Canaries workshops are running in schools across Norfolk all this week, part of our work as a City of Refuge. The workshops give students a chance to learn about exile, then imagine what it would feel like if they had to leave their home. The students really engage with issues of exile and identity through meeting exiles and working with writers imaginatively to understand what it involves - as well as learning about the local history of the Strangers and Canaries in the East of England. (Pictured right: Molly Naylor leading a workshop at Reepham High School).
Callum (12, Methwold High School) says, ‘
It was fun and I learned a lot’, and Levi (12, Methwold High School) says ‘I
liked Jack the refugee - I would like them to come back’.
These workshops have been running over the last five years and we have reached many thousands of students in schools across Norfolk through them. We’ve got some examples of their new writing below, showing their creative engagement with complex global issues:
Rwanda
Gunfire is the only sound I hear, dried blood is what I smell. The taste of smoke is strong. The sight of bodies saddens my lonely soul. The feeling of my death is upon me as I fall.
George, Methwold High School
If I had to leave my home country
If I had to leave my home country, and leave to a strange country with nothing but myself, I would feel lonely and sad, because I have nothing. I would try and find some shelter and some understanding people. I would hope I would get some support from the people around.
I am very lucky that I don’t have to, and I’m very lucky I have a house and people around that care.
Abbie, Methwold High School.
I stood there alone
I stood there alone with nothing but my phone, with no signal. I looked around and found myself in a crowd of unfamiliar faces. I walked through a crowded alleyway and into a mud shelter and sat down and broke into tears.
Anon, Methwold High School.
Above: work from previous Strangers and Canaries workshops
About the workshop leaders
Jacques Kalume
Jacques Kalume is a journalist by profession, and was born and lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for most of his life. In 1996 his life was changed by war in the DRC, and its devastating consequences on many innocent victims.
Covering the war from the front line in his capacity as a professional journalist, Jacques was compelled to broadcast the truth about events on radio and television and was arrested by government secret services, accused of violating the sovereignty of the state.
Tom Warner
Tom Warner is a Faber & Faber New Poet, with a pamphlet published by Faber in 2010. In 2010 he was selected to benefit from the prestigious nationwide Escalator Poetry scheme managed by Writers’ Centre Norwich.
Tom was born and grew up in Mansfield, but moved to Norwich to study. In 2001 he won an Eric Gregory Award for poetry and graduated from the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA with a Distinction. In 2009 Tom was poet-in-residence to Newark, Nottinghamshire as part of the Poetry-on-Trent project, supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Tom is a tutor of creative writing for groups of all ages and he regularly works in schools as a visiting poet.
James
James is one of seven siblings born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1989. In the early nineties tribal conflict spread across many villages in north-kivu province, and due to this his family was forced to leave and moved to Goma, the provincial capital, where the family started a new life.
Then in 1998 the city of Goma and rest of the province was occupied by rebels who were fighting the central government. They had been kidnapping young boys from their families to work in the rebel army. James’s father was working with a non governmental organisation helping the young boys to reintegrate into the local community and go back to school. The family remained under attack and was forced to leave.
Since they arrived in Norwich their life has completely changed again, they have a better life, filled will more stability. Without fear of war they have hope and can finally resume a normal life, and are back in school where they have made new friends and new families. Most importantly they are safe and have bright future ahead.
Now Norwich is his new home and he loves it.
Molly Naylor
Molly Naylor is a writer, performer and theatre-maker. Her solo show, Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You debuted at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010 to critical acclaim which proceeded an international tour. She was commissioned to write an audio adaptation of the show for Radio 4. Molly has written for The Independent and The Rialto and her poems have been featured on BBC Radio and in publications including The Rialto, the Londonist and Pen Pusher. She regularly performs and reads at festivals and events worldwide. Her first book – an illustrated text of her live show - is available from Nasty Little Press. She lives in Norwich.
