Over the summer, I interned with a not-for-pofit company in Sydney, Australia called The Freedom Hub. I referenced them in my previous article, but The Freedom Hub works to support survivors on their path to security and independence. In their “Survivor School,” they work with art therapy as well as English lessons for survivors coming from foreign countries. During my internship, I worked in their Survivor School one day each week, and the rest of the week I worked on articles and Instagram reels to advertise their business. One of the articles I wrote for them was on the subject about the art therapy we did in the Survivor School. I think the article is useful for anyone to know, and I’d love to post it here so you can see a bit of the work I did, but also learn something from it!
“Consider how important communicating is in one’s everyday life. Most of the time, we use words to communicate, other times gestures, or sign language can be used. This is how we live, but can communicating be more than just gestures and words? Consider having a lack of ability to communicate. If language wasn’t an option, there are other ways to give a voice to experiences and a voice to hope. In our survivor school, we do a lot of work with art therapy, and this is for a variety of reasons.
It is like…
Art therapy can look and feel like anything. Most of the time, the work itself is silent and meditative. We let our survivors work at their own pace and with any materials they like. In our recent classes, we did work with painting canvases, creating paper flowers, and painting ceramic plant pots. Visit our Instagram to see examples of our work with art therapy.
Benefits
Communication and Expression
Many of our survivors are not fully fluent in English. While we do work to teach them the language, we recognize that each survivor is at a different knowledge level. Art therapy allows for a way to express oneself when English ability is small and steadily improving.
Along with that, communicating in a new language, and adjusting to a new place after trauma are heavy mental tasks. When our survivors sit down to work on small projects and crafts, they’re able to relax a bit and destress. Focusing on the art in front of them allows them to center themselves and practice concentrating their minds. In addition to these benefits, art therapy allows a relaxed space to learn new English terms. While working on projects, survivors are able to practice their newly gained English skills in a calm, low-stakes environment. Survivors are able to practice naming colors and objects, they practice forming sentences, and are able to practice choice.
Choice and Freedom
After surviving modern slavery, one concept our clients struggle to regain is choice. When choice and freedom are taken from a person, it’s hard to relearn those concepts in everyday life. Tasks that might be labeled “simple” like choosing which train to take, what path to walk, or what milk to buy, can be so overwhelming when survivors readjust to civilian life. Our Survivor School not only acclimates our survivors with low-stakes English learning, but also low-stakes choice. Survivors choose what activities to do, what projects to work on, and what colors to use in their art.
For many survivors–-in different stages of freedom from slavery–-even small choices can be difficult, for this reason, our volunteers are there to help. By offering options to choose from, we encourage survivors to make their choices and continue encouraging them through their progress in our classes.
If you’re interested in leanring about the company I worked with, I’ll link their website here
And if you’re interested in supporting a survivor, you can do so here!
