Please note: our creative workshops are not currently taking place. Please contact us for more information, or to be notifed if/when workshops resume.
We run workshops
Our creative workshops support refugee and asylum seeking women to grow in confidence, practice English and build new relationships as part of a joyful and welcoming community. We run drop-ins as well as longer programmes, culminating in sharing performances at theatres across London.
In March 2020, we began running our creative workshops online, starting with an ACE funded workshop series ‘Unlocking Joy in Lockdown’. Sessions were delivered by an amazing selection of facilitators, ranging from Public Speaking with Teri Ann Bobb-Baxter, to Poetry with Laila Sumpton, Creative Movement with Brigitte Adela, to Storytelling with Clare Murphy, and much more! We are beginning 2021 with a new series of workshops, Open Doors, supporting personal and professional development through creativity.
This video (filmed and edited by Routes Community Member Haya Al Badarneh) documents our first in person event since the pandemic began. We shared the stories, poems and songs that have been created in Routes workshops since March 2021.
We create performances
Some of our theatre programmes culminate in performances, sharings or celebrations of the work created by participants. Our most recent performance, ‘I Am Alive - The Power of Women’ took place at the Arcola theatre in Dalston to an invited audience of 70 friends and family, alongsider the wider Routes community. The performance was created by workshop participants, with the creative support of Lateisha Davine Lovelace-Hanson, Eva Edo and Alessandra Davison.
We organise theatre trips
Asylum seekers in the UK do not have the right to work and receive £5.39/day from the government; this is barely enough to cover food and toiletries, meaning that going to the theatre, cinema or a gallery is almost impossible. We work with theatres across London to organise trips for women in the Routes community who would otherwise be unable to attend the theatre. Previous trips have taken us to Young Vic, National Theatre, Vaudeville Theatre, The Unicorn and Open Air Theatre.
We build theatres of welcome
We work in and alongside theatres to help them make their buildings, performances, programmes and outreach work truly welcoming and accessible for people trapped within the UK’s hostile asylum system. We believe that theatres can and should step up to provide a welcome that the government does not.