"HOME IS WHERE YOU FEEL YOU BELONG"
About Us
Our Vision
For people who have lived experience of the UK asylum system to have spaces for their stories and experiences to be shared and heard, contributing to a more well-informed and welcoming society in which people who have sought sanctuary feel empowered, included, and re-humanised.
Our Aims
Stories of Hope and Home has dual, complementary aims:
1) to bring together people with lived experience of seeking asylum: to create safe spaces to build community and to explore and process their experiences.
2) to facilitate encounters and share stories with others: promoting learning, challenging misconceptions, developing empathy and inspiring action.
We strongly believe in the power of stories and personal encounters as a way to help children and young people, and the staff who work with them, to engage with the real issues experienced by people seeking asylum in the UK; helping them to reflect on how they might contribute to building cohesive, compassionate communities. We seek to educate, but also to empower; helping staff and students recognise their capacity to make a difference.
After more than 100 school visits since the charity began, we know this model works. Most of our visits take place in the West Midlands but we have ocasionally accepted invites from further afield too. Last academic year, 2023 - 2024, we faciliated 34 school visits, sharing stories with hundreds of young people.
We've worked with children and young people of every age, from reception to sixth form, as well as with school staff in staff meetings or INSET days.
In our end of year survey, every school was able to identify work they had done or action they had taken in response to our visit and all of them expressed a desire to wrok with us again.
Our standard model involves people seeking sanctuary sharing their stories and answering questions from a series of individual classes throughout a day; but we have done other things too: we have got involved in days of action and retreat days, written poetry and performed theatre pieces. We are very happy to adapt our input to the needs of different groups and always love going to new places we haven't previously visited.
If you are interested in inviting us to your school or other settings, please do get in touch.
Stories of Hope and Home is made up of a diverse group of participants from all over the world. People from more than 30 different nationalities from across four continents have engaged with our activities. The current or recent lived experience of seeking sanctuary in the UK and building a new home in Birmingham or the wider West Midlands is part of our story: but it certainly does not define everything about who we are. We are of different ages and genders; we have different cultures and faiths; we speak different languages and express different opinions. We have different pasts and we dream of different futures.
For all the differences between us, we describe ourselves as one family, united by our mutual support and love for one another. We are a caring and close-knit group who know from experience the value of welcome and hospitality and therefore remain constantly open to embracing newcomers to our community.
We meet together twice a week to participate in creative activities, share our stories and support one another. Our sessions are focused around finding ways to express ourselves: through conversation and creative writing: stories, poetry and theatre. We create safe space where we can bring the whole of ourselves: our tears and our frustrations as well as lots of laughter and fun. We often find reasons to celebrate and love an excuse for a party!
If you are seeking sanctuary, basied in the west midlands and keen to explore and share your story we might be the right fit for you: get in touch!
Our regular sessions include conversation, creative writing and many, many cups of tea. Much of what we produce is just for ourselves, a way of processing and exploring our thoughts and experiences, but we have also done some more extensive creative projects which have been intended for sharing beyond our own community. Here are a few of the highlights:
Soaring with Clipped Wings
Throughout the covid-19 pandemic we, like so many others, were meeting online. We settled into a routine of writing lots of poetry. At some point during that year one of the participants commented, "we should publish this!" which led to us drawing together many of our poems, written individually and collaboratively into a poetry book.
"Soaring with Clipped Wings", an anthology of our work, was published in time for Refugee Week 2021, and includes the words of 36 people from 22 different countries. Copies of our book are available in all Birmingham's libraries and can be purchased (for £5 plus P&P) to support the ongoing work of our charity. We have also performed poetry at a number of different events, and led poetry workshops in several schools.
Refugee: What do you know about me?
A collaboration with Welsh National Opera and Birmingham REP, over a period of about six months, we worked first with writer Steven Camden, and then with a composer and musicians from Welsh National Opera to write and create a performance based on our lives and experiences. In July 2022, participants performed "Refugee: What do you know about me?" alongside professional singers and musicians from the Welsh National Opera on the main stage of the Birmingham REP theatre to an audience of around 500 school students, their staff and other invited guests. The feedback from both the performers and the audience was overwhelmingly positive.
In the Shadow of the Trees
Following the success of our 2022 performance, we devised, wrote and performed an original piece to be performed as part of Birmingham REPs summer festival in 2023, again to an audience predominantly made up of school students. It felt incredibly precious, and a sign of our group's growing creative confidence that all of the ideas, stories, structure and format were worked out collaboratively within the group.
Trees become the backdrop for exploring memories of places left behind, places passed through on the journey, and the place that gradually becomes a new home with dreams for the future.
We are delighted that the perfomrance is also now available to view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVMAazIwlNI
Love is a Rebellion
Our most recent performance at Birmingham REP was once again devised, written and performed entirely by project participants. From the earliest conversations, it became clear that this year, the group were keen to produce a performance that reflected their experience of the UK asylum system. It bore witness to their experience of a hostile system that is designed to isolate and exclude, as well as to the many small acts of love that are, in and of themselves, a rebellion!
The cast are keen to share the performance with a wider audience, so if you'd like to invite us, we're ready to take it on tour!
Watch this space for what's next ...
A Refuge is ...
One of our recent poems, written collaboratively for National Poetry Day 2023
A refuge is
The sound of birds singing in the summertime
And the wind blowing through the trees in the limitless hills
It is raindrops and running water
It is the kettle boiling
It is family laughing, children playing, friends chatting
And my mother’s voice
It is the bustling sounds as I sit by the river in my city
And the gentle breathing of a loved one as I sit in quiet companionship
It is the sound of music
As well as the sound of silence
I have found my refuge and it sounds like an echo of myself
The song of my dreams
A refuge is
The taste of warm milk late at night and buttery porridge in the morning
And milky hot chocolate, sipped while chatting with friends
It is sweet, silky honey,
And bread, freshly baked
It is the first sip of juice as we break the fast together
It is wiggly noodles slipping over my tongue
And my mum’s home-cooked food
It is meals shared with friends
It is sea salt on my lips
And the taste of my voice as I sing this victory song
I have found my refuge, and it tastes like British cake
And a cup of tea
A refuge is
The sight of a colourful garden filled with beautiful flowers
And a blanket of snow making everything white and clean and silent
It is all the greens of nature
And it is the horizon over the sea
It is the sight of a good friend’s face after a long absence
It is stepping off a train to see a familiar place
It is watching the happy ending of a movie
It is everything I see in my dreams
And then seeing my dreams coming true
It is the sight of a bright future
I have found my refuge and it looks like the first ray of sunlight
Banishing the darkness of night.
A refuge is
The smell of a garden filled with lavender beneath the evening light
And of the first rain in the autumn falling on dry ground
It is freshly prepared coffee
And my dad’s mint tea
It is the smell of a Salvadorean Christmas
It is woodsmoke and incense
And a blue scented candle
It is steam rising from pots and pans
It is delicate flowers and sweet strawberries
And a perfume that fills me with memories
I have found my refuge and it smells like my mother’s kitchen
Where I am always welcome
A refuge is
The feel of comfortable feet in my favourite walking shoes
And of fresh water splashing on bare feet with the sand between my toes
It is hot sun on my skin and wind ruffling my hair
It is a warm bubble bath
And a baby’s cheek
It is the feel of being wrapped up in a snuggly blanket on a cold winter’s night
It is my soft cosy bed
And Fresh, clean pillows under my head
It is the feel of my tummy aching from real laughter
It is the feel of freedom
I have found my refuge and it feels like the hug of a loved one
Holding me safe enough to close my eyes
I have found my refuge
It is a place where I feel I belong.
Stories of Hope and Home is a registered CIO.
Charity no. 1195224
We rely on grant funding and voluntary donations to be able to operate. If anyone would like to fundraise for us or make a donation, that would be very much appreciated! Regular donations are really useful to be able to plan ahead and build sustainability. You can easily set up a regular payment via online banking: please get in touch if you want the details!
If you are a UK tax payer please do also complete a gift aid form so we can claim the tax back at no extra cost to you.
Our Annual Report
We are excited to share our latest annual report with you! We are very proud of all we have been able to achieve together. No document can perfectly sum up all we are and all we do but we hope this reflects something of our impact for the year 2023 - 2024.
We strive to be transparent and accountable to our stakeholders, and this report is also a reflection of that commitment. We hope you find the report interesting as well as informative and hopefully inspiring as well! Thank you for your continued support!
Contact us
Email UsIf you are interested in volunteering or collaborating with us please send a message.
