Evaluation on collaboration with the refugee council.

This collaboration and project is a significant learning curve, not just for me as a practitioner but a person. The stories I was told were deeply personal and highly sensitive and as a person it made me reflect on my own life but as a practitioner I thought inventive print was completely the wrong way to tell these stories. The illustrations need to be minimal, barely edited, raw and simple. The message must be the key element to get through.

I did start off this project looking back now naively. I did have experience in running and organising workshops but never by myself. One key element that I wish I had more knowledge over was negotiating with charities over funds.  I thought that charities are organisations that don’t have much money so heavily rely on external donations but this is not always the case.  Some get substantial funds from the heads of the organisations and patrons. I am not sure where the refugee council stands within all this but I think I could have negotiated with then over the issue of fund. I am a student on a very limited budget with no external fund, so saying that I would fund materials and travel for the participants is something I should have thought about more and tried to get better funding for. The arts council could have been a good place to go for help with this.  

But this was the first time I approached with external clients by myself and it was daunting at first but once I settled into it became straight forward. It has given me a lot more confidence in working with future clients and not to be intimidated by the thought of meetings and negotiation. Collaboration was the best approach to take with the organisation as it allowed for everyone to have input to give the best opportunities to the clients. It was a shame that I couldn’t continue the project further but I was over ambitious at the start and thought I have more time than I did but this will improve with experience.

Overall the aims of the project where met. It was a privilage to have the workshops attended by the councils clients and it took a lot for some of the indivuals to attend and I hope they got something positive out of it , they definetly enjoyed them.