“We should have that spirit of resilience that this is what life is all about. It’s got its good side, bad side, and the very ugly side.”
— Project participant
As part of a recent project, our Community Action team collaborated with a group of asylum seekers on ‘Remembering Ourselves’ – a ten-week group exploring loss, memory, grief and identity through reflective art-making. Loren Seaman, Community Learning Facilitator, reflects on the process.
Loss is a central and ongoing reality for most asylum seekers, but it’s rarely addressed within the programming at Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers — in part given the care needed to maintain a safe environment for those already in difficult, vulnerable positions.
But with the right approach, a project emerged.
It came from a long-term relationship with the centre, built through previous workshops, informal conversations over lunch, and the slow, steady work of earning trust.
With the participants, we co-designed a space that could explore the themes of loss, memory, grief and identity gently, using mixed-methods adapted to the group’s needs.
With varied levels of English fluency in the group, we chose materials, colours, and symbols that could facilitate reflection without relying on language.
Participants made clay impressions of meaningful items—shells, jewellery trinkets, tools—offering ways to express memory and identity without needing to speak.
These tiles were later broken and reassembled using fragments from everyone’s pieces, forming shared mosaics of collective memory.
This physical act of breaking and reconstructing became a powerful metaphor for what’s been lost, what’s carried, and what can be pieced back together.
Each session stood on its own, with built-in moments for quiet reflection and prayer, so participants could find meaning whether they came once or every week.
We focused on listening without interpretation, creating space for individuals to engage on their own terms without pressure to explain. The process was designed in response to the needs of the group— emotionally, linguistically, and culturally.
“We put everything together and we look at life in a different dimension.”
One person shared: “Because now, these [tiles] are a mindset of different people on a platform…This could be my past, this could be another person’s present, this could be someone else’s future. So we put everything together and we look at life in a different dimension.”
Another said: “We should have that spirit of resilience that this is all life is all about. It’s got its good side, bad side, and the very ugly side. That’s what makes us. So for that reason, we have to live, and we have to move forward. And thank God for a place like this. We come here, we share together. We change our views about life. Sometimes if you are alone, you think it is just only you. But when you come and you hear their own side of the story, you get encouraged.”
“This project has changed the way I think about what we do at the centre.”
— SDCAS centre manager
The project reached some of the centre’s most longstanding clients, many of whom had been in the UK for more than 15 years and rarely participated in mixed-gender, multi-week groups.
The centre’s manager said: “The workshop approached delicate subject matter that we don’t usually address at the centre. There was a need, and it wanted to be filled. It was a really beautiful thing to see take place – the things that feel impossible to do, we managed to do in this project, and it changed the way I think about what we do at the centre.”
Although we intentionally never asked people to share, individuals began opening up. For some, it was the first time they had done so in the many years they’d been attending the centre.
“I think it’s time to remind me what happened… You’re trying to encourage me to forget about my past and try to fight for my present and my future. I’m so happy about that.”
While we weren’t aiming to forget the past – rather to let it sit alongside the present and future – these words speak to the hope that emerged: where the past could be acknowledged without becoming the whole story.
This article was originally published in issue six of our Connect magazine. To read the full magazine, or to sign up to receive future editions, please click here.
Find out more about our Community Action team here.
