My Start - From Kakuma to London

My Start Project - Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

AFRICA

My Start is a collaborative, creative Arts project working with Film Aid International. Since August 2012 My Start has run a series of Art, photography and film workshops in refugee camps each summer. These workshops encourage young refugees to share their experiences through the arts. The workshops teach practical skills, encourage creative expression and bring together the various ethnic and tribal refugee and host communities to work in a fun and dynamic way. 

Kakuma workshop

Kakuma workshop

United Kingdom

The art work produced at the camp is then exhibited in London schools. It acts as a powerful, visual resource that can be used across the curriculum to support learning on global issues. Issues such as conflict and conflict resolution, displacement and migration as well as promoting peace, tolerance and empathy. The exhibition encourages British students to share and discuss their own views on immigration, forced migration and refugees and challenges misconceptions and existing perspectives.

“The student response was fantastic and thoroughly engaging”

— Alex Costello, Art teacher, Park View School, UK.

                                                 London workshop

The British schools are encouraged to create response work including their own visual diaries and messages for the refugees at Kakuma. This work is then taken back and exhibited at the camp the following summer.  My Start is an inspiring project that brings local and international communities together through the arts.

Creating the Mural - Kakuma Refugee Camp

If you would like to support the work of My Start and their projects with FilmAid International then please contact Tania and Amy or visit My Start's Facebook page.

tania@emmanueljal.com; campbellgoldingamy@googlemail.com

Designs for Change

You may remember the name George Odenyo from his piece on the 2012 World Refugee Day and FilmAid Film Festival. But did you know he was a talented graphic designer too?

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George's unique poster, focusing on breastfeeding as part of a maternal health campaign, was selected for the África Gráfica exhibit at the Tenerife Design Festival. The Tenerife Design Festival, held in Spain since 2009, presents designs in an innovative way based on three key concepts; local identity, landscape contrast and tourism. These concepts are the starting point for establishing synergies between local factors and international proposals, consolidating design as tool of change and economic stimulus. 

The focus this year was on Africa as an aesthetic reference, as an inexhaustible source of ideas and a potent hotbed of new proposals in the field of design. As proof, the festival showcased innovative projects that had a philosophy of, "change the world through creativity."

George was mentored in the design process by Isaiah King, one of FilmAid's recent Visiting Teaching Artists who met George when they were both working with FilmAid in Kakuma refugee camp in August. George has been an intern with FilmAid in Kakuma for the last few months but has now returned to Nairobi to finish his Bachelor of Science degree in communications and public relations at Moi University.

Although organisers had not intended to exhibit student work, after being introduced to George's incredible piece by Isaiah, they decided to make an exception. George shares the wall with Isaiah King's thought provoking designs and with many world renowned designers including Chaz Maviyane-Davies from Zimbabwe.  ​