Write to Life at the Platforma conference and festival

On December 2/3, Write to Life hosted two sessions at the Platforma conference and festival, at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. This was the first ever national get together for all involved in arts with and by refugees, and it was packed, buzzy and thrilling.

Our Friday session, 'Finding a Voice', was standing room only, as a crowd of new friends watched the film we shot last year with Kristine Landon-Smith of Tamasha Theatre, and joined in a lively and passionate discussion afterwards about the importance of getting the voices of survivors like our writers into the world.

The film was clearly felt to be moving and important. As a result, we are now discussing future screenings and film festivals with Kristine, as well as planning our next collaboration with Tamasha. We'll also be presenting a special feature on the film and the Write to Life group soon. Watch this space! 

Here's what some of our Write to life members had to say about the event:

Tim

I liked the networking spirit of Platforma, there were lots of people from different organisations and hearing what everyone had to say was brilliant. Although we’re all from different organisations we share the same voice. We all believe that writing is a very powerful tool in helping to change the world.

Omar

I loved Noah’s poem, it was superb. I had never heard it before and for me it was the highlight of the event. People from other organisations were very friendly and it was nice to meet people from writing groups like ours and share our experiences. The food was great too.

Steven

It was nice to show our film to people who can feel the spirit of people in our situation and know what it is to be a fighting asylum seeker. Platforma was a good eye opener for members of the public. We were able to make our voices heard through our documentary.

Noah

Platforma was very good. I especially loved it because we had a chance to show our film to people who didn’t know about our work. They asked us lots of questions and we were able to tell them how writing helps us. I met lots of groups from Newcastle, Birmingham and Yorkshire who did similar work with asylum seekers. I had a good two days there and ate good food. I had a very nice doughnut which I loved.