The 'Story in a Poem' project

The 'Story in a Poem' project

The 'Story in a Poem' project, which ran in 2016, aimed to ensure young voices were heard on the issue of migration and to strengthen relations between young migrants and non-migrants in Glasgow.

The project ran a series of ten sessions to train young migrants and Scots between 18-30 to use creative tools to tell their stories and experiences of migration, community and integration as it affected their daily lives and realities.

Participants in the ‘Story in a Poem’ project training workshops and mentoring sessions learned storytelling, creative writing, public speaking, and explored creative ways to tell stories while exploring themes of migration, integration, diversity, community and their hopes for the future.

Participants learned how to present their stories and record them as podcasts and videos that can be used more widely and longer term to create understanding and reduce negative perceptions.

In doing so, they also built better understanding amongst themselves – between different types of migrants and between migrants and the host community.

Participants each created a final written poem and shared it with a wider audience either as a podcast, in our electronic resource, or by performing their final piece to an audience.

The poems were launched at Migrant Voice’s conference at Glasgow Caledonian University in January, which saw activists, civil society groups and politicians including Minister for Europe, Alasdair Allan MSP, debate the future of migrants’ rights after Brexit. The launch was attended by Scotland’s Makar, Jackie Kay.

To share the learning, participants' stories and poems were shared with schools and widely shared online as a resource.

A documentary about the project was also produced and shared as a model for others to replicate the work.

The project was funded by the Network for Social Change.