A toolkit for storytelling interventions with migrant childrenTHE MEANING OF HOMEA collaborative arts-based research project between Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz
THE MEANING OF HOMEA toolkit for storytelling interventions with migrant children
Synopsis: The Meaning of Home presents and reects on a six-week storytelling workshop with children from the Three2Six project at the Dominican Convent School in Belgravia. This booklet describes the activities during the sessions and oers reections on the processes of and the implications that arts-based interventions have on the psychosocial development of children, the contribution to their mental wellbeing and the improvement of their literacy skills. The booklet aims to be a toolkit to help replicate the workshop in other contexts. It is directed at academics working in the eld of arts and migration, and practitioners and community leaders who wish to implement these kinds of interventions with migrant and under-served communities.The workshop was planned and facilitated by Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz and funded by the University of the Witwatersrand. The project received ethics clearance from the Non-Medical Ethics Committee from Wits University (H23/11/25).Title: The Meaning of Home ISBN: 978-0-7961-7552-6 (Print) ISBN: 978-0-7961-7253-3 (e-book)Copyright © 2024 by Kate Shand & Nereida Ripero-Muñiz Self-published by Kate Shand & Nereida Ripero-MuñizThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) First edition: June 2024 Text: Kate Shand & Nereida Ripero-Muñiz, unless stated otherwise Copyeditor and Proofreader: Margot Bertelsmann Design: Quinten Edward Williams Photos: Kate Shand Format: Print & e-book Pages: 72
THE MEANING OF HOMEBy Kate Shand & Nereida Ripero-MuñizSelf-published by Kate Shand & Nereida Ripero-MuñizA toolkit for storytelling interventions with migrant children
CONTENTSINTRODUCTION 3Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz THE SESSIONS 7Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz SESSION 1: DRAWING CHARACTERS 9SESSION 2: MAKING CHARACTERS 15SESSION 3: PERFORMING PUPPET SHOWS 21SESSION 4: MAKING BOOKS 27SESSION 5: WRITING STORIES 31SESSION 6: NARRATING STORIES 43REFLECTION AND CONCLUSION 53Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz RADICAL PEDAGOGIES 57David Andrew THE NEED FOR SAFE SPACES FOR MIGRANTS 61Justine Kimbala AFTERWORD 65Mark Potterton
3INTRODUCTIONKate Shand and Nereida Ripero-MuñizINTRODUCTIONe Meaning of Home started as a collaborative research project between ourselves in 2023. Building on arts-based work we have previously conducted independently, we planned and ran a participatory research-arts methods workshop on storytelling with migrant children from the ree2Six project at the Dominican Convent School in Belgravia. We did this because we believed that putting our expertise together as an art therapist and a social scientist for the running of creative arts workshops with migrant children could enormously contribute to the transformation of their education and have a positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing. It also reects how an interdisciplinary collaboration using art therapy elements and research-arts methods approaches can contribute to a more inclusive co-creation of knowledge in the eld of social sciences and migration studies.e main aim behind the workshop was to contribute to the creation of narratives by migrant children as a way of generating agency, empowerment and healing, while contributing to improved literacy skills. We believe that by creating a safe space, in the form of a creative storytelling workshop, children can cultivate a sense of identity through the power of stories to activate choices. rough stories, migrant children’s experiences can emerge and oer a counternarrative of normally suppressed voices that help to understand the complex dynamics of transnational migration and in this way contribute to healing through the agency of creating stories. In terms of research, this approach to migration also contributes to the transformation of knowledge production, including rst-person narratives of normally marginalised voices. We chose the topic of e Meaning of Home as we thought it would be a good starting point to explore and reect with the children about feelings of belonging and not belonging and what makes a home. In the case of migrants and marginalised communities, where home is unstable and unsafe, the feeling of home becomes ephemeral and can nd its expression in places where children feel comfortable and safe, such as school or creative workshops. We worked with 16 grade 4 students divided into two groups. ese learners were selected because they had already been identied by their school as being most in need of additional learner support. e workshop lasted six weeks and it was funded by the Department of Modern Languages and the School of Literature, Language and Media at the University of the Witwatersrand.e Meaning of Home is based on previous work Kate and Nereida have conducted over the years, especially on the Uhambo project. Uhambo was created by Kate in 2017 as a response to scarce literacy skills and feelings of anxiety she noted in children while she was volunteering at Leka La Phodiso Community
4Art Counselling and Training (Leka) – an arts therapy organisation serving at-risk children from Johannesburg’s inner city. She transposed and adapted a one-day literacy project using a multimodal pedagogic approach designed by Pippa Stein (2008) to a weekly session over a term, with a series of activities that had dollmaking at the centre, each building on the other and concluding with a nal session where the children wrote their story in a book they bound and illustrated. In 2023, Kate rst facilitated an Uhambo group with children from the ree2Six project, this was followed by a second one with the collaboration of Nereida and the Meaning of Home project. e Meaning of Home workshop, as described in this booklet, is part of a research project that includes other arts-based workshops with migrants and research and creative outputs, which may or may not be based on Uhambo. At the same time, Nereida had been using research-arts methods with migrant communities for some years. In 2015 she was the main researcher of the collaborative project Metropolitan Nomads: A Journey rough Joburg’s Little Mogadishu, a collaboration with the photojournalist Salym Fayad, which visually documented the daily life of Mayfair – a predominantly Somali migrant neighbourhood in Johannesburg. She also conducted, in 2017, the three-day storytelling workshop Everyday Mayfair with Elsa Oliveira, in which Somali migrants reected on their journeys, life in the new country and their relationship with the city using dierent arts-based methodologies such as participatory mapping, photography or lifelines. In 2023 she facilitated the workshop Constructing and Deconstructing Identities. Migrant Narratives, Self-Fiction and Personal Mythologies for the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), a two-week storytelling workshop in Cairo for migrants from Sudan and the Horn of Africa. e workshop was partly based on activities from the work of Dorian Haarho (1998) who also actively collaborated in the planning of it. During the workshop creative prompts were used to generate narratives about home, migration and life in the new country. What emerged from these workshops was a sense of being heard, where stories were shared and helped to create meaning in very fragmented lives. ey also created a sense of community as participants shared personal stories of belonging and not-belonging, contributing to the healing of traumatic episodes generated by forced migration. e Meaning of Home explores migrants’ narratives further, taking a psychoeducational and healing
5 INTRODUCTIONapproach as a response to the learning decit in schools and the challenges of trauma and learning. Most, if not all, the children in our groups experience continuous trauma. e sequence of activities supports the development of identities in the children, encourages condence in their art-making abilities and allows them to play and explore their creativity. e repeated sequence of activities also contributes to creating a thread of connection, linking and reminding us of what happened the previous week and what would happen the following week. is created a structure and sense of predictability and with it, safety.is booklet aims to be a toolkit for the replication of the workshop in other contexts and directed to academics and practitioners working with the arts and migration. It is divided into three main sections – this introduction, which contextualises the workshop and project, the main body, which covers the sessions and includes instructions, pictures and quotations of the art/stories created by the children, as well as observations of the session. e third part includes our reection on the project as a form of conclusion together with reections from contributors from the ree2Six project and ne arts professor David Andrew.e project was made possible by many role-players. We would like to thank Claudine Ribeiro, director of the Johannesburg Parent & Child Counselling Centre, for believing in the project and supporting us with parenting sessions, and supervision; Dr Mark Potterton and Justine Kimbala from the ree2Six project for understanding the value of this workshop; Dominican Convent School principal and deputy-principal, Dalene Rostovsky and Malcolm Bowie, respectively, for helping to make this workshop possible; the Department of Modern Languages and the School of Literature, Language and Media at Wits University for funding this project; Quinten Edward Williams for the design and layout of the booklet; and Margot Bertelsmann for copyediting and proofreading the text. And last, but not least, the children in our groups for generously sharing their creativity and stories with us.e children have been given pseudonyms to guarantee their anonymity in the publication and none of the images shows their faces or any other personal identication features. e project received ethics clearance from the Non-Medical Ethics Committee from Wits University (H23/11/25). References Haarho, D. (1998). e Writer’s Voice: A Workbook for Writers in Africa. Zebra Press Stein, P. (2008). Multimodal Pedagogies in Diverse Classrooms. Representations, Rights and Resources. Routledge
7THE SESSIONSKate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñize activities presented in the next pages are the result of a six-week workshop we conducted with two groups. e sessions were one and a half hours each. Each session followed the same structure: warm up activity, check-in circle, presentation of the day’s activity, storytelling prompts, making and sharing of activities and check-out circle. During the making of activities, the facilitators went around assisting children when needed with their creations or narratives.In the sharing of their creative work, the children were always given a choice whether to share or not.We present the weekly sessions, including the instructions for the session, an observation of the process, and photos of the creative work produced by children together with captions. e captions are either direct quotes by the children (from the session’s voice recording) or a short description of the art-making process.THE SESSIONS
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9 SESSION 1SESSION 1: DRAWING CHARACTERSCheck-in circle with a sharing of how they are feeling and where their family comes from. A group contract and calendar are developed. e facilitators introduce the theme of ‘e meaning of home’ and the research part of the project – explaining assent for photographs, voice recording and publication. Brief introduction to storytelling. Ask children questions such as: • What is a story? • Why are stories important? • Why do we tell stories? Work the responses. Introduce some basic concepts about stories: • ey are universal. • ey have a structure. • ey carry a message. • ere is time and transformation. • ere are characters. Focus on the dierent characters in a story (Who?): • Main character, the hero/heroine. • e antagonist/villain/enemy. • Secondary characters (helpers of the hero or the villain). Prompts, such as images of main characters, are used to stimulate a conversation before the children move to ‘drawing’ their character. e group ends with a check-out circle where the children share their drawings and a little about their character (name, age, gender and where they come from, where they are living now).Instructions Materials• White A4 and A3 paper• Pencils• Erasers• Crayons• Pencil crayons• Felt-tip pens• Oil pastels• Chalk pastels• SilkiesIn group one, the children were very excitable. ey would start ghting with each other at the slightest provocation. e girls were particularly possessive over their box of art materials and did not want to share with the boys. Some of the boys took the pictures provided as prompts and copied the characters, others created superheroes, monsters, football players and rugby players. Group two was much calmer, contained and receptive. e girls worked together lying on the mat. ey created characters such as butteries, bees and snowmen. e boys sat in a row at the counter by a window. ey put their box of art materials and pictures of character types in front of them and started copying. Some of the boys created multiple characters. eir stories were more elaborate than in the rst group.In both groups, the boys seemed more condent to draw their characters than the girls (with some exceptions).Observations
10James: My character’s name is Neymar – he’s 26 years old and there’s his car. He’s a football player for Brazil.
11Simon: My characters are a princess and a king with clouds above them.Lula: My character is ‘Although’ – the buttery and the child – the mother and child. They live in the bushes. The mother said, ‘Please don’t eat me.’Jason: This is Superman – rst he was doing ahhh – the villain was destroying the streets – after Superman came very fast – he saved the lives – people came out and wanted to y and catch them and after Superman put them down and after they can ght. This is Superman’s house. Kryptonite. Superman will destroy it. This is the master of the house.SESSION 1
12Thato: This man is Spiderman, this one is Bubby, this one is an evil guy, a skeleton. Bubby is a good person.Lerato: Queen Lerato and her friends.
13Samuel: There was the Ninja and the monster – there were two monsters. This one was killing people and then this Ninja came with powers and then he hit the man here. Then the man he didn’t die. Then it came other friends and helped him. Then this man died. Then the villains buried him. Then all of them killed the heroes. Then the heroes didn’t die. The monster died. The good guy has a nice house. The bad guy doesn’t have a door. The bad guy jumped in the window. This house is not clean. This is a cage for the villain to not come to the city. This is the other reality for the good guy.Jonathan: This is Legend Goku.SESSION 1Dorothee: Friends. They are best friends. They are 10 years old. They are happy because they are friends and they are together.
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15 SESSION 2SESSION 2: MAKING CHARACTERSCheck-in circle with a sharing of how they are feeling today and a reminder of the name of the character (character drawings are in the centre of the circle). is connects the previous session to this session. Assent for photographs, voice recording and publication. What elements do we have in a story? • Who? (Characters)• Where? (Place where the story unfolds)• When? (Time) • What? (e plot: What happens? What’s the conict?)• Why? (Moral or message of the story)• How? (e way the story nds its way. How the conict is resolved) Prompts are used to stimulate conversation before the children move to ‘making’ their character.e group ends with a check-out circle where the children share their ‘dolls’ and something new about their character that we don’t already know.Instructions Materials• Cra glue• Scissors• Masking tape (lots)• Wool, ribbon and string• Feathers, beads, buttons• Plastic bottles and bottle tops• Fabric scraps (dierent sizes)• Stung/foam• Containers (yoghurt, egg boxes, toilet rolls, paper towel rolls, tissue boxes)We introduced some music at the beginning of the session to ground the children and calm them down before we started. We played some dolphin music. We invited the children to move as if they were a sea animal underwater. ey all participated with enthusiasm. We stopped the music and the children froze and then shared which creature they were – sh, dolphin, shark etc. It felt easier to move to the circle. We asked them, ‘What is your character’s name and how is your character feeling today?’ Most were feeling excited and happy. All their characters had names and many had ages and places that they are from. Distinct identities were forming and for some children, stories were also beginning. Transitions were very challenging for group one: arriving and moving into the check-in circle, from the circle into the activity, from the activity to check-out circle, ending and leaving. ey rushed to the materials and grabbed as much as they could. As soon as the doll-making started, they settled and became absorbed with the activity. Most of the children in group two moved to the counter by the window and worked quietly. ey supported each other – helping and sharing the materials. Observations
16Samuel: I am happy that we did this. I am sad that we are ending. This one is Madred – she’s a she. She’s evil. The superhero. There’s a third one – Mangoo – he’s a villain.Daniel: This guy always comes to the city and steals food. Daniel and John save the day. This is the giant’s bed…
17Simon: I made my characters — the queen and the king and the zombie. Today I’m feeling so excited. I love to make the dolls. I wish today we could stay here and keep making.SESSION 2
18Julia and Dorothee: The two girls worked side by side at a table. They spent a very long time attaching hair to their dolls and creating hairstyles — only dressing their dolls at the very last moment. They had their pictures of their characters nearby and the colours they chose for the doll’s hair connected with colours of their pictures. One of the girls added facial features to her doll. She seemed very pleased with her nal character.
19Naledi: Dolls are feeling happy. This is the king, the queen and the princess. Oscar: The father, strong, fastest, last born and rst born. This one can run fast. The superpower. The father can carry things because he’s strong. Brian: I want to stay here and have fun with my dolls but now I have to go and I’m sad that we are leaving. But I’m also happy. They are the warrior and the prince.Lerato: My character is feeling happy. SESSION 2
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21 SESSION 3SESSION 3: PERFORMING PUPPET SHOWSCheck-in circle with a sharing: How they are feeling today? A reminder of the name of the character and a question: ‘How is your doll feeling today?’ (Dolls are in the centre of the circle). is connects the previous session to this session. Assent for photographs, voice recording and publication. Focus on story places (where) linking to home and the meaning of home. • Where do stories take place? (Setting, contexts)• What is home?• Where is home?• What makes a home? Prompts are used to stimulate conversation before the children move into smaller groups (self-chosen) and create puppet shows (including the sets or ‘homes’ for the puppet shows). e group ends with a check-out circle where the children share an observation about another group’s puppet show.Instructions Materials• Cardboard boxes (dierent sizes)• Cra glue• Scissors• Masking tape (lots)• Wool, ribbon and string• Feathers, beads, buttons• Plastic bottles and bottle tops• Fabric scraps (dierent sizes)• Containers (yoghurt, egg boxes, toilet rolls, paper towel rolls, tissue boxes)We started playing forest music and the children were invited to move as forest animals. We then moved to our circle for the check-in. We reminded the children that the theme was ‘e meaning of home’ and we asked them what home means to them. In the rst group, traditional dishes from Congo or other places were mentioned. Home to many of the children means food. It had the feeling of comfort – the comfort of home. For some, home meant ‘here’. Someone said home meant family. Some children worked in groups to create their puppet theatres or ‘homes’ for their dolls and their puppet shows, and some preferred to work on their own. Nothing feels safe – even when the homes look cosy and welcoming there is verbal and physical violence. Observations
22Please help me: Please help me brother. They are killing me. Please help me. Please. I’m coming to help you.The long war: Two days later now is the next time – now we will be ghting in our long war.ere were two boys in this group and their puppet show was about ghting in a long war. ey created an expansive and ever-growing and transforming ‘Chinese hotel’ with a boat to bring across the visitors. ey paid attention to details such as cutting out pictures from magazines and sticking them to the wall, adding cameras and a telescope. eir puppets destroyed the ‘hotel’ they created and beat each other. ey ended their puppet show posing as Chinese ninjas. e three boys in this group performed a play about ghting and calling for help. e ght was between a spaceship and their characters.
23 SESSION 3Twins and a mother who is a queen: Jesus you love me too much, too much, too much, excess love, Jesus you love me too much… too much…ere were three girls in this group and they were territorial about their house and their materials. eir puppet show was about twins and a mother. e puppet show felt like a day in the life of… waking up, washing faces, going to school, making food. e twins went out without permission and were punished by the mother who slapped them and sent them to bed. e puppet show ended with a Sunday morning visit to church. The threatening wolf: Please mama don’t mess this house because this house is beautiful.e puppet show was a conversation between a mother and a child. A wolf enters the picture. e child is chastised for her broken English. e child is scared of the wolf and wants her mother to protect her. e wolf wants to eat the child who then falls into the water. Mother and child are disrespectful and rude to each other.
24Extreme war in outer space: Let me destroy your house.The dirty child: Hello, may I please have money? Ah you want money – for what?is puppet show was about a person living on her own without a child or a husband. She goes about her day cooking, eating, sleeping. In the morning she wakes up and doesn’t bathe or brush her teeth. She goes to the park and sits on her own. She asks a person in the park for money. e person tells her she is stupid and dirty, and that her English is broken. e person doesn’t want to give her money because she has a house. A spaceship is made. A child asks for charcoal to draw eyes for smaller spaceships. e puppet show is about extreme war in space. ere’s ghting. ey destroy the home. Everything is destroyed.
25 SESSION 3The pirate boat: A boat and naughty pirates start shooting each other.A girl called Lindi: So Lindi one day saw the bad one and then the bad one shot her. A pirate ship is created with new characters. ey are pirates. A tissue box becomes a shelter but then this is transformed into a seat for the pirates. e pirates ght in smaller boats. e big ship gets destroyed but the captain is safe. is child spent a long time creating the outside of her house but there was nothing on the inside. She didn’t want to start her puppet show until everyone was listening. She wanted to use one of the other children’s characters as her ‘villain’. is puppet show was about a bad person wanting Lindi’s family’s home. e villain shot Lindi who ended up in hospital. Her mother used her magic powers to overcome the villain.
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27 SESSION 4SESSION 4: MAKING BOOKSCheck-in circle with a sharing of how they are feeling today. Assent for photographs, recording and publication. Recap on elements of stories and introduce structure and time.Focus on story time (when) and story structure: • Beginning (Presentation) • Middle (Conict. Actions. Transformation)• End (Resolution) Prompts are used to stimulate a conversation before the children move to making their books and start to write their stories (they can use images instead of words). e group ends with a check-out circle where the children share their books and one thing about their story.InstructionsMaterials• Coloured A4 and A3 card and paper • Scissors• Cra glue• Masking tape• Pencils• Erasers• Crayons• Pencil crayons• Felt-tip pens• Oil pastels• Chalk pastels• SilkiesWe introduced drumming as a warm-up activity and to help with the transition to the circle. It was very well received. e group members took turns to drum and shared with us how they were feeling. We moved to our circle and the children shared that their class teacher was leaving that day and they were only told in the morning. e children were very eager to get going. Nereida had an idea to ‘sell’ the paper for the books as if in a shop and the children all participated with enthusiasm, and some of them even made paper money to use. ey also calculated what they were going to spend based on the imaginary prices we gave to the dierent pieces of paper. ere was less grabbing and the children were able to choose their pieces of paper, ‘pay’ for it, and nd a place to start creating their books.In group one, the children had mixed feelings about their class teacher leaving. Two of the girls copied from a child’s story book entitled Let’s have a party. ey destroyed their homemade books at the end of the session. One of the girls smeared a lot of glue onto her paper and stuck paper down on top. She created a cut out border for her book and wrote her own story about apologising to her mother. In group two, all the children were very sad about their teacher leaving. Many of them made little cards for her and the drumming gave the girls an idea to do a little concert for her later. When Kate went upstairs to say goodbye to the teacher, the girls had managed to nd a drum and a percussion instrument and were about to perform. is group is more able to sit and listen to the story prompts. Observations
28James: Soccer playerSimon: Villain Brian: Space warThato: Hero
29Oscar: God, alien, earthLerato: The princessLula: The wolfNaledi: A story about a princess and a birthday partySESSION 4
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31 SESSION 5SESSION 5: WRITING STORIESCheck-in circle with a sharing of how they are feeling today about their story and a reminder that next week is the last session. Assent for photographs, recording and publication. Recap on story elements, structure and main characters.Apply it to their stories.Prompts are used to stimulate a conversation before the children move to continue writing their stories. e group ends with a check-out circle where the children share how they are feeling about their stories.InstructionsMaterials• Coloured A4 and A3 card and paper • Scissors• Cra glue• Masking tape• Pencils• Erasers• Crayons• Pencil crayons• Felt-tip pens• Oil pastels• Chalk pastels• SilkiesWe started with the drumming again. We checked in and the kids were prompted to share something about how they were feeling in general and/or something about their new teacher and/or their book from last week. We went through the story prompts, noted the calendar and invited them to nish their stories from last week. While writing their stories they were asking us and each other for help with spelling some words. e stories have a great amount of violence in them.In group one, some of the boys found their places within the room but one of the boys seemed a little bit ‘homeless’ – moving around and unable to settle. is boy also seemed to struggle with his story and instead of creating a story, made more books. He wasn’t the only one, a few of the children made more books. It seems easier to make a book than to write a story. Two of the boys gathered their materials and found a hiding place in a corner with two stools to protect them further. ey worked in this small, cramped space. It reminded us of a child’s fort. It was snug, safe, protected from outside intrusions. Even their books and stories were protected by boxes. When asked why they chose to work there, they replied, ‘We are protecting our books.’ One of these two boys was very reactive in the group. Kate had to sit next to him to try and keep him calm during check-out – the boys chased and hit each other. In group one, the girls sat in a row – they made new books because they’d destroyed their books in the previous session. ey seemed to take more time and care in this session. Although they’d started by copying a children’s story book, in the end they wrote about parties, but made them their own. Kate transcribed a story for one of the girls – she was able to give her story more depth and detail. In group two, many of the stories were about the teacher leaving. is group produced more elaborated and complex stories with an obvious beginning, a middle and an end.Observations
32Samuel: The pirate man
33 SESSION 5Thato: Hero
34Amandla: I love you
35 SESSION 5
36Dorothee: Let’s have a party
37 SESSION 5
38Dylan: Hero kidDaniel: Hero Fred, the sad man and the legendary age
39 SESSION 5Julia: Queen Julia and Princess DorotheeJonathan: The legend family kids
40Brian: Space war
41 SESSION 5
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43 SESSION 6SESSION 6: NARRATING STORIESCheck-in circle with a sharing of how they are feeling today and talking about the last session. Assent for photographs, recording and publication. Feedback from children, in the form of a drawing, on what the workshop meant for them.Finishing of books and stories.Sharing of stories.Check-out circle.Bag with materials produced in the workshop, a notebook and coloured pencils for future drawing.InstructionsMaterials• Pencils• Erasers• Crayons• Pencil crayons• Felt-tip pens• Oil pastels• Chalk pastels• Silkiesere were three children absent in the rst group and it was much calmer. We checked in – most children were excited to be in the group at the same time as sad about it being the last session. As a form of feedback on the workshop, we asked the children to draw a picture about what the group has meant to them. One child drew us – twice – and crumpled up his pictures. He nally copied Kurt Cobain smoking and playing the guitar, as another child was doing (from a painting hanging on a wall in the classroom). e girls all created ‘party’ images.ey all had an opportunity to share their stories. e stories varied in length, topics and even format, with one boy of the second group choosing to share in the form of a play using isiZulu.We lled their bags with their drawings, a blank notebook and crayons and they le with a cupcake. One girl had hit another with a pencil (we didn’t notice this happening) and the girl spent most of the session with her head in her arms. She seemed sad to be ending and did not want to share her story with the group. ey were all proud to read their stories. e girls took their ‘home’ with them.Observations
44I love my character. Today it’s Mickey Mouse’s birthday. I will invite people, Julia, Dorothee, Princess. I love my story and my book. My story is about the party. e party was nice. People eat the cake. e princess was very happy and playing with friends. ey went to Eastgate and played with toys. e end of the story.My mum was angry at me because I went to my friend’s house without permission. At my friend’s house we sang and danced and then we went to the park. My mother came looking for me. She beated me. I felt bad. e end. *Julia didn’t want to share because she was upset with Dorothee but she agreed for Kate to read her story.e hero saw the skeleton and the skeleton went to take the princess. And the hero went to take the princess and they killed the hero and the skeleton killed also the princess and the helper came and killed the skeleton […]. And the helper brought the princess and the hero back to life.ere is the cake. e next day we went to church, sang and danced. We came back home. We ate and slept. We ate cake and chocolates. e next day we went to church. at’s it. e end of the story.Princess has a partyQueen Julia The hero and the princessLet’s have a partyLeratoJuliaSimonDorothee
45I draw my house, and [...], and my dog, and clouds and […] and sun. e wolf came through the window, they were sleeping and the wolf tried to eat the baby. And […] and the house and I wrote I love you Miss Adams. My teacher is Miss Adams. I draw a ruler and I drew grass […]. e girl was […].I love you [confusing talking] I love you… She was carrying a bag in her car and the […] Me and my sister and our school. The wolf Miss Adams bookLula LulaSESSION 6
46One day, there was a mother and princess going together. […] The princess shouted: ‘Mommy!’ And then the princess said ‘What?’ ‘Look at this person,’ she said to her. ‘I want to eat your father.’ ‘Where is my father first? I don’t know where my father is.’ ‘I don’t need to show you’ but then he showed her […]. After that the mother and the daughter were crying and she said to them: ‘Yes, you can cry, you can cry, no one is […] at’s the end.One day Miss Adams called me. She said: ‘Naledi tomorrow is my birthday’ […] And I said ‘Happy birthday’ […] And she went.I love you Miss Adams Another storyNalediNaledi
47My name is Neymar. I come from Brazil. I am 36 years old. My friends are Jonathan and ato and Dylan and when I grow up I will be a soccer player. ey won the cup.Shanti is boxing. I am boxing. My friend is boxing. James is boxing. Shanti is running. My friend is running. James is running. e next day Shanti is swimming. I am swimming. James is swimming. My friends are swimming. e next day… I am done. e story is done.Soccer playerHeroJamesatoSESSION 6ere were stones, there were stones falling down to the earth and the wind blew very fast. […] e moon, something fell out of the moon came out […] and the other ones, […] and one stone hit the earth and a green aliens came to […] and there were three aliens and when they were done the three stopped to have […] and the lights came from up and they saw god, and the angels god said you have saved the earth you will be a king. e end.God saves EarthOscar
48Hello everyone. […] Today I am feeling excited and sad. And these are the characters! Hello princess!Alone. One day, […] the princess was alone. She did not have friends and family. Doom! ‘I will kill you!’ She wanted to kill people and she had powers and the eyes were not like these, white, now they are black and she wanted to kill people. ‘Hey you’. She said that. ‘I will kill you!’ but she was talking to no one. ‘Hey you man come here I will kill you today.’ But […] ere is a house here, it is her house and she was screaming in the house, ‘Ahhh.’ And then she asked: ‘Where are the people?’ And she forgets she did not have family and she used the bed sheet to cover her from the rain, it was raining and she used her magic, the re and also the frozen side and she used her magic to come ahead and she was using her magic around, up to the mountain. She was looking for people who pray on the mountain. Princess was […] she did not have eyes or hair or hands because she wanted to […]. I think that god punished her because she did not do well and wanted to kill people. No hands, no hair.Ms Adams was carrying her bag, she was wearing her glasses and I was crying on the stage thinking about Miss Adams. Because Miss Adams is gone. […] My friend called me and said she was happy Miss Adams was leaving because she didn’t like her. It was raining, she was going that side. End.I love youAnother story about Miss AdamsAmandlaAmandlaYou will never go to space. Nooo. e boy didn’t listen. He went into the spaceship, ew o to another planet […] but for him the magic worked […] so when the boy landed he said he wanted to explore around and around. One day he was walking and he found a weird plant with eight eyes, aer he said, ‘What kind of plant is this?’ He went closer, a black hole appeared. e boy ran away. Next day he found a rock. He went inside, he went to stay there but didn’t know what was inside the rock. ere was a big snail. As we know snails are very slow but this snail was not normal, it had legs and was running behind the boy. e boy was running away. Aer he fell inside a hole. e snail looked for the boy but he did not nd the boy. Aer that, the boy was going through the tunnel, he went out of the hole, he went into space. ere was an asteroid coming so the boy was scared and he thought, ‘What can I do?’, so he was not killed. So he thought that maybe when the asteroids were coming he could jump through all of them. So he jumped one, two, the next one, he got bumped, and he started again, he jumped one, he jumped two, again, he got bumped again. But he didn’t say to give up, what he say is to try again. He said: ‘Let me go here and use the top ones.’ e top one were not moving, he went, one, but the thing was moving, it was moving much faster than the other, so he timed it and when the next one came he jumped quickly into the other side. Aer that he fell asleep, aer he woke up he found the snail looking at him again […]. e boy said: ‘I need to travel around the world.’ ‘Today is not your day,’ the snail said. ‘Today is the day to be eaten by me.’ When the snail was chasing the boy, the snail had to run away because of a big spider. ey both were running away from the spider. Aer that, the snail said: ‘You can be my friend […]. He closed the door, it was like a garage door, he closed it, then the spider went away. Next day, he said today […] but because it was a magic , so there was a tornado, a black tornado, like black, black, black, black, blaaack, black, black, black, so aer that it was like the darkness, the boy was very small, and the tornado was huge, so he started to run away to the [shell/shelter] again aer that, the snail said: ‘Now it’s my time to eat you, I am very hungry.’ […] ‘You saw the tornado?’ […] e boy was running away. Aer that he saw a red tornado, a red one. He run way. He was looking for the spaceship, but the spaceship was up in the air. I was oating. He thought, ‘How can I go up there when the tornado nishes?’ […] I was green and blue dots, and he went inside the dream and he Space war Brian saw the giant snail again, even much bigger than the last time, so he said, ‘Mr Snail, please, don’t eat me.’ e snail said: ‘Come inside my shell’ aer the snail closes the shell, the boy asked, ‘Are you going to eat me?’ ‘Yes, you are already trapped, I am going to eat you now.’ e snail was about to eat the boy but the boy broke the door of the snail who […] the boy away. Aer that he said: ‘It’s time for me to go home now.’ So he went back to the spaceship, back home, back to his father and the father shouted at him and the father said […]. at’s the end.
49Improvised play in isiZuluSamuel Zulu original Child 1: Gogo, Gogo – Sanbonani. Child 2: Yebo.Child 1: Ninjani kodwa (inaubible)Child 2: Sharp.Child 1: Gogo, Gogo, ng’yasha. Child 2: Ma, ngizok’landa.Child 1: Gogo, Gogo, siyasha.Child 2: Ngizok’landa.Child 1: Gogo, Gogo, ng’yasha. Child 2: Ngizok’landa.Child: Wangen’uGogo.Child 3: Jabu, Jabu, ng’yasha. Child 2: Ngisaplana.Child 3: Jabu, Jabu, ng’yasha. Child 2: Ngisaplana.Child narrator: Wavuth’uGogo. Wathath’ikhanda lakaGogo, wal’hl’etoilet.Child: Sukuma.A knockChild 2: Yebo?Child 4: Jabu, s’lambile.Children: Uph’uGogo?Child 2: Uvakashile.Children: Uvakashe kuphi?Child 4: Jabu, silambile.Children: Jabu, s’lambile. SESSION 6English translation Child 1: Grandmother, grandmother – Hello.Child 2: Hi.Child 1: How are you all though? Child 2: Sharp.Child 1: Grandmother, grandmother, I am burning.Child 2: Yes, I am going to fetch you. Child 1: Grandmother, grandmother, we are burning.Child 2: I am going to fetch you.Child 1: Grandmother, grandmother, I am burning.Child 2: I am going to fetch you.Child narrator: e grandmother enters.Child 3: Jabu, Jabu, I am burning.Child 2: I am still planning.Child 3: Jabu, Jabu, I am burning.Child 2: I am still planning.Child narrator: Grandmother is burning. He took Grandmother’s head and hid it in the toilet.Child: Move.A knockChild 2: Yes?Child 4: Jabu, we are hungry.Children: Where is Grandmother?Child 2: She is visiting.Children: Where is she visiting?Child 4: Jabu, we are hungry.Children: Jabu, we are hungry.
50Child 2: Ngenani.Child 4: Jabu, letha ngogez’izandla.Child 4: Jabu, ng’cela uk’y’etoilet.Child 2: Hamba. Child 4: (screams) Ha!Children: Ha! Ikhanda laGogo.Child 4: Jabu, umyenzeni uGogo?Child 2: Lutho.Child 4: Ushe kanjani? Why sithol’ikhanda lakhe ngale?Child 2: Ng’Gogo loyo?Child 4: Eya yikhanda lakhe!Child 2: uBoileke … Children: Unamanga Jabu.Child 4: Jabu uph’uGogo? Ukuph’umzinmba wake?Child 2: Ngiwudlile!Child 4: So wena s’udl’uGogo?Child 4: Jabu, Jabu, ongalaleli, umyenzeni uGogo?Child 2: Ngimdlile.Child 4: Jabu, Jabu, Jabu, umyenzeni uGogo? S’cel’ umlungis’uGogo!Child 2: Mlungis’uGogo!Child 4: Mlungise!Child 4: Jabu, beniyenzani?Child 2: Bes’dlala, bes’dlal- bes’dlala umangen’ebhodweni.Child 2: Come in.Child 4: Jabu, bring that so I can wash my hands. Child 4: Jabu, can I please go to the toilet?Child 2: Go.Child 4: (screams) Hah!Children: Hah! Grandmother’s head!Child 4: Jabu, what did you do to Grandmother?Child 2: Nothing!Child 4: How did she burn? Why did we nd her head in there?Child 2: Is that Grandmother?Child 4: Yes, it is her head!Child 2: It is boiled… Children: You’re lying, Jabu!Child 4: Jabu, where is Grandmother? Where is her body?Child 2: I ate it!Child 4: So, you have eaten Grandmother?Child 4: Jabu, Jabu, you don’t listen. What did you do to Grandmother?Child 2: I ate her!Child 4: Jabu, Jabu, what did you do to Grandmother? We ask that you x Grandmother!Child 2: Fix Grandmother.Child 4: Fix her! Child 4: Jabu, what were you doing?Child 2: We were playing, we were plan – we were playing ‘one who enters the pot’.
51Children: Hawu Jabu!Child 4: Hawu Jabu! Why wena ungashanga ke? Kwaze kwash’uGogo?Child 2: Yim’ engiqalileyo kwalandel’uGogo.Child 4: Why benidlal’ umashe’ebhodweni?Child 2: Because nguye oqalileyo.Child 4: Uban’ oqalile? Nguwe!Child 2: Ng’Gogo.Child 4: Nguwe! Oqalil – Child 2: uGogo!Child 5: Nguwe Jabu oqalileyo!Child 2: Gogo – Child 4: Yebo Jabu, nguwe!Child 2: Gogo – Child 4: Ung’ngiphapheli Jabu, uzoshis’uGogo ebhodweni? SESSION 6Children: Gosh, Jabu.Child 4: Goodness, Jabu. Why did you not burn? at Grandmother ended up burning?Child 2: I started and she followed next.Child 4: Why were you playing ‘one who burns in the pot’?Child 2: Because she’s the one who started.Child 4: Who started rst? It was you!Child 2: It was Grandmother.Child 4: It was you who start – Child 2: It was Grandmother.Child 5: You started, Jabu.Child 2: Grandmother – Child 4: Yes, Jabu, it is you!Child 2: Grandmother – Child 4: Don’t patronise me Jabu, you burnt Grandmother in a pot?
53REFLECTION AND CONCLUSIONKate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñize Meaning of Home became a collaborative project between Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz at the end of 2023. It was the second time Kate facilitated this group. As mentioned in our introduction, e Meaning of Home workshop developed from the Uhambo project, which is based on the work of Pippa Stein. By applying principles of multimodal pedagogies, Stein developed storytelling to support the development of literacy. As the stories presented along these pages showcase, narrating their own stories gives young people an opportunity to develop and engage in sustained speech, and to draw on available discourses and genres they already know.Storytelling strengthens the children’s capacity for the expression of voice by having their own worlds reected back at them. Uhambo combines multimodal pedagogies and art therapy practices within a therapeutic framework of a safe and holding environment. In this creative space, the children were able to actively participate in their own meaning-making. e Meaning of Home continued this approach, adding the introduction of some basic storytelling elements, such as archetypal characters, parts of a story or a sense of time in a narration, to help the children create their stories. Some prompts were used at the beginning of each section to help the children to think about characters, time or meaning. is time, the workshop also had two facilitators, which was optimal for groups such as these as it makes it easier to contain the children and they receive more attention.e Grade 4 class was divided into two groups of about eight children each. As the observations at the end of each section have shown, the two groups were very dierent. We facilitated the groups one aer the other with the school break in between. We refer to them as the rst group (the group we saw before break) and the second group (the group we saw aer break). e rst group was chaotic and the children struggled with transitions – arriving and sitting in a circle and sharing, moving to the creative activity, then back to the circle at the end for a check-out and closing. We wondered about the fact that these children all have Congolese parents, and the impact that intergenerational trauma may have on the children. We moved each week from this fragmented, anxious, reactive, chaotic group, who were unable to think or absorb, to the second group, who seemed to be able to think and receive. e second group was able to listen to and engage with Nereida as she showed the children pictures of character types used as prompts in some of the sessions. It was very challenging moving from checking in to the art activity to sharing and checking out. Sitting still and listening to each other was a big challenge for many of the children. ey were all eager to get to the creative activity and they also didn’t want the REFLECTION AND CONCLUSION
54sessions to end. Once making and creating, they were engaged – the energy shied and we all felt less overwhelmed. We asked ourselves, how can we manage the transitions creatively and playfully? Could we introduce something to help manage the transitions from one activity to the other? In session 2, we decided to try music at the beginning of the sessions to help with the transitions and make children release some energy/anxiety before they started their creative period. It was useful for two sessions, then the children lost interest and it didn’t have the same eect. Later on we introduced a drum and drumming – this also helped and some children, especially in the second group, were very engaged, taking turns to play and dance.Aer checking in and explaining the activities for the day, children would get their materials. Both groups, but group one in particular, would grab as many materials as possible. ere was an overwhelming sense of deprivation, of never having enough, of having what they’ve got taken away, of never having anything. e children seemed to need to grab in order not to miss out. However, once the children settled with their materials, they made very creative use of everything. ey discovered that they would nd what they needed and that they had enough. ey started to understand that in that space there was enough. Sharing was challenging for the rst group – the boys and girls kept separate, and the girls attacked/defended if any of the boys came to borrow art materials or to look at what they were doing. We felt we had to stand guard over the materials counter! By the middle of the workshop, Nereida had the good idea of setting up a ‘shop’ and ‘selling’ the paper with pretend money and the children all participated enthusiastically. We really felt a shi in them from their impulse to grab everything to being able to choose their pieces of paper, ‘pay’ for it, and nd a place to start creating their books.From these two groups emerged characters that included soccer players, superheroes, friends, kings, princesses and butteries. Some characters stayed xed throughout the journey to their nal story, and some changed. Some boys copied the pictures Nereida showed of dierent character types. We wondered about this and when we run the group again, we will see what emerges from the children without sharing images with them. e girls in the rst group also copied each other and a children’s book that found its way into the room (brought by one of the girls, perhaps). ere seems to be safety in copying.Regarding the meaning of home, what emerged from their puppet shows and stories was that home feels hostile, violent, alien and foreign – they were aliens and foreigners. ere were Chinese hotels, spaceships, pirate ships, ghting, needing to rescue and be rescued, the role of church, destruction, humiliation and shame, being shouted at, punishment, scary wolves, stupid children, scolding and insulting mothers, magical mothers who can bring dead children back to life. Homes seemed to have impingements and intrusions. e wolf is something to fear – a dangerous and menacing force. Like in Little Red Riding Hood, the question is, can the child outwit the big bad wolf? Can the mother protect the child? Some of the children took such care over the creations of their ‘homes’, yet their subsequent puppet shows and stories were all about insults. is made us feel sad. Nothing feels safe – even when the home looked cosy and snug, there was verbal and physical violence in their stories and puppet shows, with mothers and children disrespectful and rude to each other, and insulting at times. In the book-making session, two boys from the rst group gathered their materials and found a hiding place in a corner with two stools to protect them further. ey worked in this small, cramped space – it reminded us of a child’s fort. ey were able to create for themselves a snug, safe and protected space. Even their books/stories were contained and protected within boxes. ese boys seemed to have found their place/home by building a fort within the room. Home felt like something they have to build On the last day of the workshop, we asked children for their feedback - they created colourful faces and drawings that conveyed a sense of celebration
55 REFLECTION AND CONCLUSION for themselves and then guard because it may be attacked. At the beginning of session 3, we explored the meaning of home with the children. We asked them where home was for them. In the rst group, home evoked food and traditional dishes from their country of origin. However, in the second group, for many, home meant ‘here’. We wondered if ‘here’ referred to the storytelling group or the school, but it was clear that the safe space they considered home was outside the family home, illustrating how homes are not always a place of comfort and safety.When it came time to ‘write’ their stories (they could choose to write words or draw pictures), many of the children made more (new) books instead of writing. Some of the children destroyed their books and had to make new ones. Some copied each other or copied an existing book. It took them time to trust their own voices and imaginations. However, when it came to sharing the stories, they were all proud to narrate their stories. One of the boys had no written words but told a full and rich story. He was a natural storyteller and the children all gathered around listening. But mostly, it was dicult for the children to listen to each other’s stories. However, we could observe as the sessions progressed how the children were gaining more and more condence when relating their stories. We used a phone to voice record the sharing session – with previous assent from the children. Nereida usually held the phone while they spoke, but as the sessions advanced, they wanted to hold it themselves, mimicking a microphone, and it became some kind of ritual by which they could assert their agency. By holding the phone as a microphone it seemed their voices amplied and they slowly became aware of the value of their stories.At the beginning of the nal session, we reminded the children that it would be our last day together and invited them to make drawings reecting the question: ‘What did the group mean to you?’ e boys mostly drew us, or tried to capture a picture that was on the wall in the room of Kurt Cobain smoking and playing a guitar. Some of the girls created colourful faces and drawings that, although abstract, conveyed a sense of celebration. A few of the children chose to take their ‘homes’ with them. We gave all the children a bag with their drawings and books, together with a blank notebook and pen, along with the invitation to keep drawing and writing until the next workshop.While compiling this booklet and reecting on the children’s images and notes, we became aware of what we missed during the chaos of the moment while running the groups. One of our biggest takeaways is the awareness of how much time is needed to think and reect about the children, the sessions, the images, and the connections between all of them. In particular, we noticed the connections between the images created in each session – how the dolls look like the drawings, and the puppet shows end up in the stories, and we have much more of an understanding of how the stories started to develop in the minds of the children and their creative output from the very rst session. is conrms the importance of further research in this area to develop and create educational instruments that can serve the psychosocial development of migrant children from underserved communities.To conclude, and as a way forward, we believe and hope to have shown with this booklet, the importance of applied arts in education as a powerful tool to contribute to healing in marginalised communities. By creating stories, using creative prompts, children developed a stronger voice and agency. We hope to continue these kinds of interventions with children from the ree2Six project, and at the same time also oer them to their teachers and parents, to expand the impact that applied arts methods can have on the wellbeing of migrant and marginalised communities.
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57 RADICAL PEDAGOGIESRADICAL PEDAGOGIES Reading about the Meaning of Home workshop has prompted me to revisit and reect upon perhaps one of the most inuential pedagogical inuences that continues to invigorate much of my practice as an artist educator. Here I refer to my participation in the Wits Multiliteracies Research Group from the late 1990s until 2015. ese involvements allowed me to work with Pippa Stein, whose work with Denise Neweld and many other teachers and researchers, galvanised the presence of multimodality in South African education. e Wits Multiliteracies Research Group emerged from their vision and leadership. Kate, the Uhambo creator, cites Stein’s work as a foundational framework for the Uhambo project and the subsequent Meaning of Home workshop. So, my rst observation is that the fundamental principles of multimodality continue to be deeply integrated into the work described and discussed in this publication. is is more than noteworthy. More than two decades aer the seminal New London Group writing of which Stein and Neweld were part (Cope & Kalantzis 2000), the Uhambo project more widely represents an example of how multimodal pedagogical holders, particularly situated and transformed practices, remain present in South African teaching and learning environments. In many ways, the work undertaken by, among others, the Wits Multiliteracies Research Group and scholars in the Western Cape, produced a pedagogical framework for the transformation of teaching and learning in South Africa. e reasons for why this ground-breaking work is not more present in teaching and learning environments is a discussion for another occasion. Nevertheless, evidence of this framework can be found within numerous environments and the Meaning of Home workshop is certainly one of these pockets of potentiality.e second observation also links the Meaning of Home workshop with Stein through her Fresh Stories chapter in Sarah Nuttall’s edited volume Beautiful/Ugly. Stein writes:rough making objects such as these, the children’s capacity to have and cultivate their voices has been strengthened…. e children are using cultural forms to display what Appadurai calls the ‘capacity to aspire’, thereby placing futurity rather than pastness at the centre of their meaning-making. (2006,187)Stein’s writing from 2006 could easily be taken as a critical reection on the Meaning of Home workshops nearly two decades later. For me this represents just one of the markers of the import of the work being done in the workshops.Appadurai’s thinking around capacities to aspire is not beyond criticism, of course. But given the lineage of this kind of work in South Africa, I see David Andrew, associate professor, Department of Fine Art, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
58evidence that suggests that there is considerable value in continuing to create the conditions for these multimodal engagements. rough making objects and telling stories such as the ones found in this publication, the children’s capacities to aspire, even in small ways, are deepened. At the heart of Stein and Neweld’s writing is the argument that these pedagogies ‘inform a social justice and equity agenda’, (in Archer and Neweld 2014, 4) and, beyond this, how they deserve to be active as a mainstream presence in the curriculum. Rather than lapsing into a decit framing of the children participating in the workshops, which is common in South African teaching and learning environments, Kate and her collaborator Nereida create spaces that recognise what Sashi Cullinan Cook identies as ‘surfeit thinking’ where there is a concerted focus on ‘existing skills and literacies in order to leverage learning’. (2018, 66) Kate and Nereida refer to their approach as psychoeducational and it is in this space where they draw together their multiple experiences across arts therapies, arts practices, and education that the futurity of multimodal work becomes so pointed. And it is in this space that further theorising and action is necessary – the Meaning of Home workshop prompts further consideration of how extended conversations between the psychoeducational approach and multimodality should be taking place.e Meaning of Home workshop creates what is oen referred to as a safe space and a holding environment. ese are not easy, polite spaces in that they actively engage the complexity and agency of the children’s lives rather than ignoring them. e children’s multimodal stories oen juxtapose and superimpose astonishing accounts of daily domestic life, the palpable violence and trauma intersecting with these lives and the referencing of the fantastical possibilities of popular culture that surround them. ese come together as deeply invested material representations or, as Archer and Neweld describe multimodal work, ‘multi-layered, communicational ensembles’. (2014, 1) As noted above, the children’s multimodal stories invite multiple lines of exploration that cannot be covered in this aerword. roughout my reading of the workshop accounts I was reminded of the Imibono Yentsha art-making workshops that took place in townships in and around Johannesburg and the Vaal region in the violence-wracked early 1990s, Stein’s Olifantsvlei Fresh Stories from the early 2000s and postgraduate research on many aspects of multimodality at multiple institutions up to the present. ese resonances with the Meaning of Home workshop suggests how, oen against the odds, the work being realised through multimodal frameworks is being sustained as a durational presence. I have always thought that there is never a conclusion to the project of multimodality, but for the purposes of this aerword my invitation to all of us is located in how the Meaning of Home workshop is a form of living tribute. In Neweld and Archer’s co-edited volume from 2014, they pay tribute to Stein and simply write: ‘…and Pippa, whose work lives on.’ e Uhambo project and Meaning of Home workshop are the living embodiment of her vision and ambition for education. is is the project’s achievement. ere have been many occasions over the last three decades where enormously promising moments in education have been present only to dissipate into nothing or, at best, a diluted version of the initially energised potential. One of the challenges for the multimodality project envisaged by Stein and others is the addressing of the tendency for initially radical pedagogies to lapse into forms of orthodoxy. My experience of the multimodal stories in this
59 RADICAL PEDAGOGIESReferences Archer, A. & Neweld, D. (2014) Challenges and Opportunities of Multimodal Approaches to Education in South Africa in Archer, A. & Neweld, D. (Eds) Approaches to Research and Pedagogy. Recognition, Resources, and Access, Routledge, LondonCope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (Eds) (2000) Multiliteracies. Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Macmillan, South YarraCullinan Cook, S. (2018) ‘Surfeit inking’ in the Learning and Teaching of Design eory in South Africa, in Gray, B., Cullinan, C., Toa, T. & Soudien, A. (Eds) Standing Items. Critical Pedagogies in South African Art, Design and Architecture, VIAD, Johannesburg, 66-81Gray, B., Cullinan, C., Toa, T. & Soudien, A. (Eds) (2018) Standing Items. Critical Pedagogies in South African Art, Design and Architecture, VIAD, JohannesburgNuttall, S. (Ed) (2006) Beautiful/Ugly. African and Diaspora Aesthetics, Duke University Press, LondonStein, P. (2006) Fresh Stories in Nuttall, S. (Ed) Beautiful/Ugly. African and Diaspora Aesthetics, Duke University Press, London, 164-187publication suggests that there is something of this radicalness in the creations of the participants. Stein, whose work guides this publication, would be moved, and energised by its contents. And she would remind us that the work is ongoing.
THE NEED FOR SAFE SPACES FOR MIGRANTSTHE NEED FOR SAFE SPACES FOR MIGRANTSMany Africans come to South Africa thinking it will be a green land where they will nd honey and manna falling from heaven. Instead, coming to South Africa has been very challenging and migrants are really struggling. It is not easy to survive in this new South Africa without a job or support or income. Lack of nances is compounded by poverty, xenophobia, political uncertainty and upheaval and violence. I can say that all the children that are in the ree2Six project experience crime every single day. ey are also living in severe poverty, sharing one room with their families and sometimes two or three families are living together in these conned spaces. is also contributes to the children’s ongoing trauma when they come to school because the environment where they are coming from is not safe. I came to South Africa in 2001 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and I joined ree2Six in 2008 when the project started. I have watched it grow. Being part of the ree2Six project is like being at home, for myself and for the learners and parents who experience similar struggles in terms of living in South Africa. From 2008 to 2022, the hours of schooling for the project were between 3pm and 6pm. We were able to teach the children English, mathematics and life skills. e creativity of teachers was also very important to integrate other subjects that the learners were missing. Now we are in a new environment – the Dominican Convent School – and the children have the opportunity to go to a regular school. ey are very happy and very excited to come to school. It is a dream come true for them. Responding to the government’s call ‘leaving no child behind’, the project also helped learners with remedial issues to access the ree2Six project. We could not just leave them at home and so they were also included. We had what we called a ‘happy class’, and this was an inclusive class whereby learners regardless of their age were all in one class together. We started at the Dominican Convent with the ree2Six learners with dierent levels of ability. All of a sudden it was a full day, new teachers, a new environment – it was an overwhelming situation for the children. For those who were developmentally ready, it was not an issue. ey were able to adapt to the new situation. But there are some learners who are struggling with the new pace. A group of children in Grade 4 was identied as being behind academically and they were nding it challenging to be in a mainstream class. ey have been put in a class according to their age and then asked to perform activities without any scaolding. It is no wonder that they are struggling. But give them a practical task. Give them what they can talk about their lives. Anything that is practical, they can do without a problem. Justine Kimbala, Project coordinator, ree2Six Refugee Children’s Education Project
62Kate understood this. She saw that the children need to be accepted the way they are. e children need to have a space where they can express their emotions. Kate created a group for where the children can create and express themselves. We can see that the children who attend the groups are becoming more condent. ere is a brightness on their faces as they enter Kate’s room because they know that this is where they are supposed to be. It is amazing to see their ideas be realised creatively, and the stories behind their creations. Uhambo means journey in Zulu and the children and their parents have been on a long journey to get to South Africa and the journey continues here. Uhambo provides a place where the children can express themselves and feel at home. It is a place where they feel accepted. A place they feel loved. e creation of safe spaces, such as the Uhambo group and the Meaning of Home project, within the school becomes very important for the children.After the Meaning of Home workshop had concluded, we shared the draft of the booklet with the parents and children to show them the nal result and make sure they were happy with the photos chosen. This was followed by a clay activity that involved the children and their parents. Everyone worked together creating tables of food and gardens. The theme of celebration ran through all the creations.
THE NEED FOR SAFE SPACES FOR MIGRANTS
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65 AFTERWORDAFTERWORDWe all celebrated when we heard the news earlier this year that one of our former ree2Six students, Jeremy, was accepted into Wits Medical School. Although his matric results were stellar, he couldn’t get into university last year because he did not have the correct documentation, and he spent the year tutoring struggling students. Jeremy, like the rest of our students, lives on the edge of the eastern inner-city suburbs of Johannesburg, where foreign and South African communities live side by side. e children and their families live in apartments, factories and abandoned houses, which are not maintained, in areas of the city neglected by the authorities. e competition for scarce resources in these densely populated areas where unemployment is high is a source of tension, discrimination, and hostile and xenophobic attitudes towards foreign nationals. e limited access to state and private social services in these high-density residential areas is a challenge for foreigners as priority is given to South African nationals. e lack of documentation is oen a reason why foreign nationals are unable to access essential services, and language has also been found to be a signicant limitation to securing access. Many refugee children in Johannesburg are integrated into local schools, which may be already at or over capacity; a common barrier to education is a lack of space or overcrowded classrooms. is impedes quality and teachers cannot attend to the needs of all their students.Some refugees in Johannesburg face a higher cost of living than those in rural settings, and rely on existing social services and NGOs wherever they can and make ends meet among limited livelihood opportunities. ey struggle to provide basic needs for their families, and it is dicult for them to prioritise education for their children, especially if school and other fees are expected for enrolment and retention. Some children may also be expected to work rather than attend school. Refugees may live far from schools that have space and don’t have aordable transportation options for getting to schools safely. Students and families are sometimes fearful of moving around the city and/or sending their children unaccompanied to school because of a lack of documentation and fear of physical, sexual, xenophobic or gender-based violence. Refugee children experience displacement and trauma dierently, but many students need assistance as they begin school for the rst time or attend again aer a prolonged absence. Living in overcrowded and stressed environments adds to the trauma that Mark Potterton, director, ree2Six Refugee Children’s Education Project
66children face, and the support children receive in their classrooms impacts these students’ interest and ability to continue their schooling. ere are many success stories like Jeremy’s, and most of the children in our school are resilient and overcome many of the obstacles that they face. But it certainly isn’t fair that children must do it on their own. We must never forget that children need to grow, learn, and live a safe and healthy life with dignity and respect.We need to advocate for children as individuals with rights, requiring governments, communities, and families to create an environment that nurtures their potential and safeguards their dignity, irrespective of their background or the circumstances in which they nd themselves.We need to make every eort for children to be children. e Meaning of Home workshop facilitated by Kate and Nereida is part of our ongoing eorts to ensure our children have these opportunities as the workshops are safe spaces where they can be and express themselves.
67 AFTERWORD
68Kate Shand is part of the rst cohort of students to qualify as art therapists in South Africa, having completed an MA in Art erapy from the University of Johannesburg. Her research and practice focus on the intersection of art therapy, multimodal pedagogies and storytelling to support the emotional wellbeing and literacy of migrant children from Johannesburg’s inner city. Nereida Ripero-Muñiz and Kate ShandMEET THE AUTHORSNereida Ripero-Muñiz, PhD is a senior lecturer and researcher at the School of Literature, Language and Media at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research focuses on migration within sub-Saharan Africa, using diverse methodologies such as ethnography, narrative enquiry and participatory arts methods. She is the editor of the book Metropolitan Nomads: A Journey rough Joburg’s Little Mogadishu and author of the monograph Cosmopolitan Refugees: Somali Migrant Women in Nairobi and Johannesburg. https://nereidariperomuniz.com/
The Meaning of Home presents and reects on a six-week storytelling workshop with children from the Three2Six project at the Dominican Convent School in Belgravia. This booklet describes the activities during the sessions and oers reections on the processes of and the implications that arts-based interventions have on the psychosocial development of children, the contribution to their mental wellbeing and the improvement of their literacy skills. The booklet aims to be a toolkit to help replicate the workshop in other contexts. It is directed at academics working in the eld of arts and migration, and practitioners and community leaders who wish to implement these kinds of interventions with migrant and under-served communities.The workshop was planned and facilitated by Kate Shand and Nereida Ripero-Muñiz and funded by the University of the Witwatersrand.