Creativity and the Refugee Experience
Date and time: Tuesday, June 16, 2020, 6 to 7:30 pm British Summer Time (UTC+1)
Register here.
‘The refugee experience: an exploration of how art, writing and creative connections matter’ By Medicine 360 and Bristol Refugee Festival
Medicine 360 and Bristol Refugee Festival team up to deliver a Zoom webinar on the refugee experience: an exploration of how art, writing and creative connections matter.
This webinar is part of the Bristol Refugee Festival 2020 #BRF2020 which presents a digital program around the theme “Imagine”: celebrating the contribution of refugees and asylum seekers across the city.
Bristol Refugee Festival collaborates with organizations and communities across Bristol to promote better understanding as to why people seek sanctuary, help overcome misconceptions and support successful integration.
Our speakers:
Teresa Thornhill is a linguist, author, and child protection barrister with a special interest in the Middle East. She visited and wrote about the West Bank in 1989 and Lebanon in 1999. In 2016 she volunteered at Hara Hotel, a makeshift camp on the Greece–Macedonia border. She met Syrians from all walks of life as she distributed clothing and organized activities for children. Hara Hotel weaves the story of daily life at the camp, the recent history of the revolution in Syria, and the journey of Juwan, a Syrian who walked through the mountains of Macedonia to safety in Austria.
Amani Bremo is a Syrian refugee who has spent time in Turkey, Lebanon and Greece in the last six years. Formerly a student of economics at Aleppo university, she now has refugee status in Greece and lives in Mytilene, Lesbos, where she works as an interpreter for a small Swiss refugee NGO.
Marian Liebmann has worked at a day center for ex-offenders, with Victim Support, in the probation service and as director of Mediation UK. She is also an art therapist and has run many training courses in restorative justice and art therapy in the UK and overseas. In 2013 she was awarded an OBE for services to social justice through art therapy and mediation. She currently helps with the Art Table at Borderlands drop-in center for asylum seekers and refugees. She has written and edited 10 books, including Restorative Justice and Art Therapy and Anger.
Forward Maisokwadzo works as manager of Bristol City of Sanctuary and is Inclusion Advisor to the Mayor. A journalist by profession, Forward is the current chair of The MediaWise Trust, an ethics journalism charity. Forward was the first person to receive the European Network against Racism Foundation’s award in the individual category for outstanding achievement across Europe. Forward is driven by the desire to see an end to poverty and racism, and stands for social justice, climate justice and society’s upholding of children’s and refugees’ rights.
The panel discussion will be facilitated by Thanos Tsapas. Dr. Tsapas works as a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy in Bristol. His practice is influenced by ideas from psychoanalysis and narrative therapy. His interests include justice doing approaches in psychotherapy and the use of films in medical education. He volunteers for Medical Justice providing medico-legal reports for asylum seekers in detention centers.
