To celebrate Refugee Week, Iranian artist Majid Adin visited The Alex to run a creative workshop for children visiting the hospital.
This year’s Refugee Week took place between 15 – 21 June and as a way of marking this our Wellbeing Service wanted to bring our hospital community together through art making and conversation.
The theme of this year’s Refugee Week is Courage, inspired by the lives and experiences of people seeking sanctuary and our Wellbeing Manager Jess Linton wanted to organise activities to build a send of community, connection and joy while exploring this important theme.
Mahid Adin, Iranian comic artist, illustrator and animator came along to The Alex for a workshop where he drew comic portraits of children visiting the hospital for an appointment or treatment, that they could then take home with them as a keepsake.
Majid arrived in the UK seeking sanctuary as a refugee nearly a decade ago. Since then, he has contributed many thoughtful and inspiring creative projects in psychosocial health settings and in larger scale public and private work. His latest commission has been to create animations for the London and Broadway musical Paddington.
After setting up a drawing station in the atrium on Level 5 of The Alex, Majid met lots of children and young people who wanted their portraits drawn, some of them also took the opportunity to do some of their own drawings related to the theme of the event, and a couple even created their own portraits of Majid.
Majid really enjoyed the experience, saying, “I have so enjoyed being in the children’s hospital today, it’s great to have activities here making it feel like a children’s hospital; so different from adults hospital.
“One of my best memories was one girl drawing my portrait as I drew her, which was brilliant! It felt like we could learn about courage from each other, and the children were so creative.”
And the feedback from children and their parents was overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s been so nice to have activities on when we are in for treatment on a Tuesday – the arts and the music,” said a mum of child who regularly visits the hospital for their oncology treatment.
One young patient coming in for a physio appointment said, “Wow it’s so cool, I really love my picture.” And a young oncology patient said, “I love it! I am going to take it with me and put it in my room.”
Another parent added, “What a lovely thing to come across when we are waiting for our appointment.”
For Jess, the workshop was a really important way to introduce the themes and background of Refugee Week and how they relate to the children’s hospital. She said, “For refugees around the world, courage is often a daily necessity. It is the courage to face unknown journeys, learn new languages, navigate unfamiliar systems, or simply to wake up each morning and step into an uncertain world.
“For others, their journeys of courage happen whilst in hospital, and with activities like this we aim to create a culture of care, wellbeing and celebration of that courage every day. A massive shout out to our wonderfully diverse team of NHS, hospital and hospital charity staff that keep us safe, happy and healthy.”
To find out more about our Wellbeing Service and the different ways it aims to support children and families during their hospital treatment, just click here.
