Building from our work in the activity packs, we ran a creative workshop programme for foodbank users in Summer 2021, focusing on themes of mindfulness, inspiring positive mental health and encouraging reflection on identity and society.

 

This was a trial programme funded by Manchester City Council that we ran over six weeks. As a group we tried visual storytelling, translating each other’s stories into painted pictures, creating poetry collages, and mindful sketching with a guest young artist from the charity Arts Emergency.

 

Due to the success of the pilot programme, in 2022 we will be rolling it into a 6 month creative programme, featuring regular weekly sessions in central Manchester for people using foodbanks across the city.

 

We are working towards Can You Hear Me Now? being fully co-created with local people using foodbanks. We want to ensure that power is shifted to those with lived experience of food insecurity, those who have been persistently excluded from making decisions, and ensure that ideas on what the campaign includes and doesn’t include is driven by them. Recently, we have ran co-creation planning sessions, inviting foodbank users to be involved in the structure of the creative programme for the new year, whether that’s a programme of cooking, crafts or cultural exchanges. 

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The new programme is set to begin in May 2022 following further co-creative planning. Below are some pictures from our pilot programme.