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FAISAL IBRAHIM OFFICIAL HometownUk Scotland Edinburgh Email---info@faisalibrahim.com web-www.faisalibrahim.com

A group of bright students and Faisal at Drummond Community High School in Edinburgh have spent a year creating a dramatic story and film about issues affecting young black and ethnic-minority people, (writes teacher Michael Paley).The Action Research on Violence Project (ARVP) – coordinated by Shakti Women’s Aid and NHS Health Promotion with support from the Scottish Government – has encouraged young people from these communities to put forward ideas and opinions about issues that affect them and their peers. It's important work since these groups' voices have often been lacking in past Scottish survey work and academic research on young people. The pupils focused in particular on issues of violence and conflict, using creative tools such as forum theatre to increase a sense of security as they thought about different types of conflict and tested out how they might impact on young people. The students involved worked with Lisa Rigby, an Information and Education worker with Shakti Women’s Aid, and Gavin Crichton from Active Inquiry to create Difficult Times for Saqib. The film tracks a day in the life of a young boy dealing with different types of conflict in his life. It also features interviews with group members about the project's activities, their thoughts on the issues raised in Saqib’s story, and what they got personally from taking part in the scheme. Local MSP Malcolm Chisholm (above right) recently attended a special screening, and said he was very impressed with all the young people who had taken part. The video and project report will be launched at a special Edinburgh event in early 2013. Faisal Was The Main Character In the film INTRODUCTION The Action Research on Violence Project was organised by Shakti Women’s Aid with help from NHS Lothian Health Promotion and the Scottish Government Safer Communities team, in response to: A variety of violence and conflict issues identified by black minority ethnic (BME) young people accessing Shakti’s services; Significant anxiety from BME young people when discussing these issues, even where situations were directly concerning them; An ongoing lack of involvement from, and under-representation of BME young people in studies in Scotland about young people’s ideas on, experiences of or attitudes towards conflict & violence; Attempts to engage Scottish young people on such issues not fully considering or addressing barriers for hard to reach young people such as those from BME communities, particularly the issue of what constitutes a ‘safe space’. We explored the idea of the ‘safe space’, hoping to find ways BME young people can discuss and offer opinions on issues like violence and conflict with greater ease. We were lucky to work with 10 fantastic young people from Drummond High School in Edinburgh who, among other things, helped us make a film called Difficult Times for Saqib (see above). To find out more about the group work and how we produced the film, go to Project. project

Like many projects, it started with a conversation on experiences of BME young people using services like Shakti Women’s Aid. Many of these young folk, seeking support for problems including domestic abuse, forced marriage and Honour-based violence, were also often dealing with other issues of conflict or violence such as bullying at school or pressure from peers towards risky or harmful activities: issues for any young person regardless of ethnicity. We were aware however of particular difficulties for young people from BME communities to openly talk about these topics and recognised that little work had been done in Scotland to find out why. We felt, at the very least, there was a lack of safe spaces for these young people to start building their own vocabulary, grow confidence and take ownership of these topics. We chatted with 1st and 3rd year students at Drummond Community High School and after a period of trust-building and further reaching out to the local communities, a core group of 10 students was formed. We then enlisted expert help from Gavin Crichton of Active Inquiry, a local arts company promoting increased participation in the arts as a means for active involvement in society. Using forum theatre games and skills, the group created characters and scenarios to form the central focus of discussion, including their main character, ‘Saqib’, his family and friends. They then made ‘photo still’ scenes, imagining issues of conflict that could affect Saqib or people around him, and discussed what the impacts might be Saqib. Among other issues, bullying at school, domestic abuse and isolation were suggested as both causes and results of conflict.

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