The Project
The Poetry Sanctuary is a nascent creative arts workshop endeavor aimed at offering refugees and asylum seekers a platform for exploring and sharing their experiences of displacement, in poetry and performance.
The first incarnation of this project has been under Reading Refugee Support Group's "Roots to Routes" platform, led by Theatre Director Jude Haste, RRSG's Culture and Integration Manager. The Roots to Routes project incorporates drama, radio, and poetry. Jude and Yasmine Shamma have been working together to coordinate and lead (respectively) the poetry writing workshops, despite pandemic limitations. The result has been a weekly virtual drop-in session for local refugees. With an "anyone any language welcome" approach, Yasmine has been leading the workshops in English and Arabic, alongside artist and translator Lina Zawati. Fusing Jude's experience working in Theatre, with Yasmine's in Education and Refugee studies, and Lina's in Art and Translation, the project aims to travel thorugh various spaces of displacement as a workshop available to refugees in the UK and Middle East.
Currently operating as a volunteer-created, unfunded pursuit, Poetry Sanctuary will continue in its initial iteration as part of RRSG's "Roots to Routes", while moving into being offered in refugee camps in the future, once travel is permitted again. For more on the project's evolution, see here. Currently, it is offering writing workshops to Afghans recently displaced, and awaiting resettlement in UK based hotels.
Poems and more will be published soon. Until then, for any queries regarding the project, Contact Yasmine.
Recent coverage of the project
The project in collaboration with RRSG's Roots to Routes Covid 19 Digital Platform, was covered by BBC 1:
The project was discussed in context on BBC Radio Berkshire.
The Reading Chronicle has also reported on the project.
The Reading Chronicle has also reported on the project.