The Makhbul Youth Group

Summary of group

‘Makhbul’: (the Dari word for beautiful) was set up over a year ago with the aim of providing a safe and creative environment for asylum seeker and refugee children living in Glasgow. Isolated within their communities, and bewildered by many aspects of Western culture, it was felt that providing a place/space of their own, where the children could meet up to play, learn and share their experiences, would be crucial in furthering their integration and building their confidence.

The Makhbul Youth group is going from strength to strength. Initially the group was for Afghani children and worked with the Glasgow YWCA, the main space providers. It has recently been affiliated with the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees and is expanding to welcome all children, refugees and Scottish.

The project
The children were asked to think of and create an image of a hero. Then to create a world for their hero to inhabit and to describe different things that might happen to him/her/it. The children looked at combining images and stories from Afghanistan (where they are from), events that had happened to them in Scotland and things they were interested in and developing them into paintings and personal boxes they could send. They used all sorts of art media including, drawing painting, printing, using food and sculpture (modelling and construction)

Comments

• ‘I like the painting drawing and make a flower with colouring’
• ‘I like to draw a picture and I like everything in the museums with Charlie and Heather and that it is so nice and lovely. I liked very much and thank you very much’
• ‘I like painting and making the box’
• ‘I like everything because it was good’
• ‘I learned lots of new things’
• ‘I liked everything. Because there was nothing worst’
• ‘the best thing was the party and all the painting’

what do you think we can do to make the project better

• ‘more making things – like cake’
• ‘make it longer’

Artists
Heather Lynch and Charlie Hackett