“I personally enjoyed everything. These workshops gave me a new lease of life. They’ve encouraged me to continue writing and publish my book...I’d love to do this again. Whenever I leave this workshop I always feel positive”
- Deborah, Workshop Participant.
“I’ve had a great time. I’ve made new friends.”
- Luke, Workshop Participant.
“These workshops have bought Luke out of his shell. He usually just repeats what he’s told or says what he sees, but lately he’s been encouraged to use his imagination.”
- Dave, Luke’s Carer.
“I enjoyed it all. I liked learning a way to make a new story. These exercises provided me with lots of inspiration and material to write a lengthy piece.”
- Sarah, Community Projects Officer.
For six weeks, Scribble Ink had been working with Community Focus to provide a block of creative writing workshops for Barnet MENCAP; an organisation providing a range of services and campaigns for people with learning disabilities and their families to secure good services and support the north London borough.
The aim of the workshop was to have the group write prose expressing how the people and objects they correspond with in everyday life affect their thoughts and feelings. Each participant chose from an assortment of images which they stuck to A3 paper. With every image chosen, they wrote a caption explaining what the image reminded them of and how that made them feel. Once the captions were completed, they developed their own characters. These characters went on a journey and on said journey, they were to stumble across the images the participants had written about previously. The thoughts and feelings bought about by these images were injected into the characters. As a result, each participant was left with a well rounded piece of prose.
Having worked with many groups since the start of Scribble Ink, I must say this group had some of the most inspiring and outstanding participants I’ve ever encountered. Their creative abilities were truly amazing and the atmosphere was so pleasant. Even before the end of the workshops, I was already missing them! It was hard to say goodbye, but I take comfort in the hope that Scribble Ink will have the honour of working with them again in the near future.
A special thanks to Community Focus and Barnet Mencap for supporting these workshops and a bigger thanks to Sarah, Dave, Luke, Deborah, Joseph and Beze for all their hard work during the course.
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