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I have been running workshops with asylum seekers from teens to adults for several years through English Pen who champion literature and human rights. One of the most successful texts I have used is the poem 'Go and Open the Door' by Miroslav Holub,  This poem can help to change lives.




I first used the poem with a group of teenagers in a project based at the Tricycle Theatre. We read the poem and then I literally opened the outside door and said, "What if you opened the door and outside was Africa?"
Ahmad from Kuwait wrote,
Go and open the door..../maybe you will see death and war/ maybe you will see guns, bullets, bombs and terror/ But no matter what, you will see happy, helpful, handsome people/ So go and open the door...
Then he said, "This has been the best day of my life!" His voice had been heard at last.



In this time of uncertainty, after the attacks in France last week and the sense that all our freedoms are under threat, there are voices which we generally don't hear - those of asylum seekers. These are people who have already been through our worst nightmares and are trying to build a new life in a strange country so far from home, where they often feel silenced and misunderstood.
But we can learn so much from them if we are only willing to listen.



I have just completed an 8 week course with asylum seekers at the MRCF in Ladbroke Grove.  The theme of my workshops was 'Writing for Health and Well Being.' My aim was to provide a toolbox to dip into and to experience how writing can help express the whole spectrum of experiences and feelings.  I used simple poetry devices to get started.

I want/ I don't want ( Martha)
I want to start my new life with courage and
passion.
I don't want to be stuck anymore because
life is beautiful.
I want to run and buy what I like.
I don't want to lose time with my life.
I want to go to the sky and see how far it is
I don't want to stop dreaming in the night.

As the weeks progressed the participants began to feel that writing could be a part of the lives as a way of helping to deal with their experiences and how everything had changed for them.

Kanchana wrote, "Writing helps a lot to relax the mind and can express feelings in writing. I hadn't thought of writing like this before."
Florence felt that when she first joined the class she was quite uncertain how writing could help with improving her life. But by the end of the course she was writing longer and longer pieces and declared, "Asking us to answer the question, Who am I? is simple words, a simple question, but it is really very big. Doing this writing for me has been very positive and it has changed everything for me."

Who am I  by Florence 
I am a midwife.nurse
I am not practising.
I am married
I am not a mother.
I am very active
I am not doing anything now.
You can't judge a book by its cover by Florence
I might be short but I am complete,
am black but still human
I can't read and write but I understand
don't judge me by first sight
but after hearing my views.

I brought in a set of objects and the participants chose things to write about. They went on to take photographs in the neighbourhood and wrote texts to go with the pictures. These have now been made into posters and will be exhibited in the local community.  Here is some of the writing and photos I took in the workshop.

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Take around seventy students from France, Germany, Spain and Turkey, put them in a room and tell them to speak English, think English, read English and write English about Peace and Tolerance.     What happens?
"Everyone wrote, said and did something about peace, they were creative, honest and nice." Gulsah, 14 years,Turkey.
"I learn sisterhood." Fatma, 16 yrs, Turkey.
 "I enjoyed the teamwork." Sami, 18 yrs, Syria


In October, 2014, I was invited for a second time to the Lycee Maurice Genevoix in Paris  to lead workshops on Peace and Tolerance. The school is part of an EU project and this time the partner schools from Germany, Turkey and Spain were joining us.





All the students were divided into two groups and each group would have a two hour workshop with me.
 How could I make sure that this mix of students with such varied abilities in English, whom I had never met before, had a positive and meaningful experience and gained some insight into working for peace and tolerance?


I need not have worried. The students came prepared to struggle with their English, listen, debate, question, laugh, say things out loud which are really quite difficult to admit to ...."I do not feel I can say that I am proud to be Jewish in France today".... and meet the Other from another country with an open heart and an open mind. It was a privilege to work with them.

I started with a poem by a boy who was an asylum seeker from Bosnia. Unfortunately his name is not known.

After the reading, we discussed the poem and then I asked the students to write a piece showing how they might respond to the boy. Here are examples of their writing :-

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Authors holding up the books they would send to prisoners - demonstrating opposite Downing Street, 27.6.14.

Around 44% of the prison population are deemed to be dyslexic which means many of them have had difficulties accessing books since childhood. So why give them books to read? Why give books to children who can't read? What a waste of time.
I was a Special Needs teacher for 25 years and have worked with hundreds and hundreds of people from ages five to adult who have struggled to master reading. All of them wanted books - to look at, to have read to them, to hold, to love, to admire and to help them become independent readers.

Mark Haddon and Ruth Padel

In November 2013 The Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling, banned the sending of book parcels to prisoners, initially saying that books are a perk and privilege they must earn. But after a massive outcry including a campaign lead by the Howard League for Penal Reform and English PEN involving some of our most influential writers, it was then stated that -  drugs are smuggled in through book parcels - and -
well, prisoners can't read anyway, so why do they need books?!?
Well that just waved a massive red rag in the face of we authors.

The campaign to persuade Mr Grayling to reverse this misguided policy is gathering momentum. On June 27th 2014, a group of authors including myself, Sir David Hare, Dame Margaret Drabble, Mark Haddon, Ruth Padel, A.L. Kennedy, Sarah Waters, Rachel Billington and Kathy Lette, joined with Francis Crook, Chief Executive of The Howard League for Penal Reform and Cat Lucas from English PEN, along with other supporters, to meet the Shadow Minister for Justice, Sadiq Khan, at Westminster to discuss our protest. Mr Khan pointed out that there have been massive cutbacks in prison libraries which means most prisoners have little chance to obtain books. One prisoner he had visited recently in 'separation' had in his cell a prayer mat, a Koran and a Stephen King novel - the novel was given to him by a Warder who just felt sorry for him. Prisoners, including Young Offenders, are spending more time in their cells than ever before with almost no access to books.


There are plenty of books which would be suitable for prisoners with reading difficulties, as I pointed out. We authors are writing them and publishers such as Barrington Stoke are actively extending their catalogue, let alone all the graphic novels and even books without words but with high interest value, which would be perfectly accessible to all prisoners. Many children's authors and Y.A. authors are writing books which would be eminently suitable. We all agreed, together with Mr Khan, that having books in the cells is not a 'perk or a privilege' as Mr Grayling advocates - but an essential informal educational tool which actively works towards rehabilitation.
 As David Hare commented, "If this is an incentive system, who has won the prize of more books?"

After our meeting with Mr Khan our group moved to the site opposite Downing Street to continue with our demonstration. Writers were interviewed by the media who were well represented.



 A small group then took a letter to hand in to the Prime Minister to draw his attention to our ongoing Books for Prisoners campaign and to ask for his support.

Our letter to Mr Cameron pointed out that in April 2014 we requested a meeting with Mr Grayling to discuss our concerns and "we were extremely disappointed that Mr Grayling did not agree to our meeting."....."We strongly urge you to reverse this harmful policy at the earliest opportunity."


As a parent, a former teacher, a children's author and most importantly, a human being who simply cannot imagine being locked up 23 hours a day without books, paper and pens - I am urging you to follow this campaign, support it wherever you can and help everyone involved to persuade the government to reverse this counter-productive policy.

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In January this year I was invited to Maurice Genevoix School in a Paris suburb near Porte D'Orleans to lead workshops on peace and tolerance. The teacher, Sarah El-Bouh, found me via my website because of my experience in working across divided communities and my writings on peace and dialogue. I speak some French, have lived in Paris and visited numerous times and was absolutely delighted to be invited. The school is part of a two year project on peace, with other schools in Europe as part of the Comenius Peace Project.
Like the UK, France is wrestling with its political and social views about ethnic minority groups, immigration and left versus right. A couple of weeks before I travelled, the controversy about the footballer, Nicolas Annelka and le quennelle, an anti-semitic gesture, was all over the media. As an Anglo/Jewish author, whose great uncle had been deported from Paris to Auschwitz and who had written a novel ( HIDDEN, Albury Fiction) about Muslim asylum seekers, how would I be received in a Paris school? I needn't have worried - I had the most amazing time!!


I worked with three groups of students, aged 15-17 years and all of the work was in English. The students read out my poems and drama scripts, spoke, listened and wrote their own pieces all in English which was very impressive. I told them that I belong to English PEN, "literature and human rights," and that PEN's motto is, "The pen is mightier than the sword." They understood straight away and translated into French, "La Plume est plus fort que l'epee." That became our catch phrase for the day.

My aim with the work was to ensure that the students felt that they could all individually contribute to promoting peace and tolerance in their everyday lives. I therefore chose poems and texts which would inspire them to write their own views and feelings.
The first poem I presented  was 'Sorry' by a boy from Bosnia. I had asked the author Hilary Freeman if her partner, Michael, could translate the poem into French for me, which he kindly did. One of the students volunteered to read the French as I read the English.

The students written responses speak for themselves. Here are two examples :-


I have also written my own poems about peace and tolerance and one of the poems asks, What can you do for Peace? The opening stanza gives you a flavour:-

They discussed their writing in groups, wrote in groups and also wrote on their own. But their commitment to expressing themselves in English, despite the difficulty of the subject matter, was outstanding.

Speak with your friends for Peace/grumble with your family for Peace/Ask your teachers for Peace/ Act Now! by Hippolyte Quentin
Do everything for Peace.../Be tolerant for Peace/ Help for Peace/ Don't be racist for Peace/ Pray for Peace/ But you must believe in Peace. by J. Samia
Be different for Peace... by Moulin Emeline
Give some of your time for Peace... by Maxime M.

One of the students, Sami, came to France from Homs in Syria only three months earlier with his sister and knows how hard it is to start again in a new country. I read an extract from HIDDEN and the students then read a drama script at the point where my teens, Alix and Samir, have saved an asylum seeker from the sea and now Samir is trying to persuade Alix to help hide the man to save him from being deported and possibly killed back in his homeland. Alix is faced with an impossible choice.The students discussed the choice in their groups and then fed back to class. Sami felt that as an asylum seeker he could not put himself at risk and would not be able to help. Others were divided as to whether they would help or not. I pointed out that there was no right answer to such a difficult dilemma.
Alizea Girand wrote, "Hidden is my favourite because we see the evolution of Alix. At the beginning she knows nothing about racism but because she becomes friends with Samir, she discovers how hard it is for a foreigner... Peace is something really important in my opinion. We had all the poems before but we didn't know they were as powerful and meaningful as Miriam showed us."
Chloe D wrote, " Getting involved in this peace project is really important to me. In this way meeting a writer too is a good experience because you've more experience that us."

We looked at a poem I wrote after an incident in my 'Corner Shop'. The students read the text before my visit and were curious about its origin. During the Gulf War, in the queue one morning at my local shop run by a Muslim family, there were local people from the orthodox Jewish community,  my Japanese hairdresser, a group of Hindu ladies, an elderly man and some children. Someone said something about the war. The owner spoke up, saying,"Well, we won't let that come between us," and everyone agreed, nodding their heads and saying, "That's right!" As I told the students, Peace broke out in my Corner Shop that day.
The poem ends :-

prisoner released, girl unharmed, bomber stilled.

This idea really captured the students. Here are some responses:-

We are the peace process/ The ones who give peace a chance/ We can change the minds/ Together against violence and war.  by H. Ouachek
We are the peace process/ We are the world/ We are the peace army, peace warriors.
by Sacha Veilec

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An exhibition on imprisoned writers organised by English PEN will open at Lewisham Library this week.

"Beyond Bars" highlights the work of 10 internationally-based writers imprisoned or persecuted for their views, including 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, serving an 11-year-sentence in China, and Burmese poet and comedian Zarganar, who has been given 35 years imprisonment.
 

The exhibition, organised to mark the 50th anniversary of PEN's Writers in Prison Committee, continues in Lewisham until 8th July.

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