The first project to come under the banner of 'Fabric' has been that of 'Quiet Voices.' This has been a development from Action Factory's previous work in that the funding allowed for six weeks with a musician, Frenchie, to work with a group of adults from the refugee and asylum seeking community in Blackburn. The intention was to pass on and develop skills to support participants in creating a song for World Mental Health Day - not only to increase their own self esteem, communication skills and wellbeing, but to create an original, artistic piece of work that communicated an important message. Our previous work with this participant group has involved Drama, Writing and Spoken Word, as well as shorter projects involving Dance, Film and Music and Visual Art. Music sessions have always been well-received, but as it is not a specialism within the core staff team at Action Factory, it has been difficult to sustain without additional funding.
To date, the resulting song, 'Freedom' - written and performed by the group with verses in English and seven Spoken Word sections in different languages - has had an audience on three occasions in October 2012: a World Mental Health Day event at the Asylum and Refugee Community Drop in (Wesley Hall, Blackburn;) the Arts and Minds event organised by the Community Restart Team (Darwen Aldridge Community Academy) and the NHS sponsored Diversity Day (Soccer Dome, Blackburn.) The event at Darwen Aldridge Community Academy gave us the opportunity to support two locally-based film makers to create short pieces for projection and to showcase writing from our recent Creative Writing pilot project in Darwen, as well as providing a workshop with Frenchie that allowed the Health professionals present to create and rehearse their own song.
To date, the resulting song, 'Freedom' - written and performed by the group with verses in English and seven Spoken Word sections in different languages - has had an audience on three occasions in October 2012: a World Mental Health Day event at the Asylum and Refugee Community Drop in (Wesley Hall, Blackburn;) the Arts and Minds event organised by the Community Restart Team (Darwen Aldridge Community Academy) and the NHS sponsored Diversity Day (Soccer Dome, Blackburn.) The event at Darwen Aldridge Community Academy gave us the opportunity to support two locally-based film makers to create short pieces for projection and to showcase writing from our recent Creative Writing pilot project in Darwen, as well as providing a workshop with Frenchie that allowed the Health professionals present to create and rehearse their own song.
