UEL Seminar November 14th

Andrea gave a talk and showed a cut of Samar's film of the Beirut Workshops to a small but really nice group. It took place at the University of East London's super-zoomy Campus in Docklands (above). Those present included Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, Erene Kaptani and Catherine Donaldson from the UEL staff and Jed, Andrea, Samar and I from the Beirut team.

Stas Smagana from the Goldsmith's MA course was also there and made some really good contributions during the discussion after. Both he and Erene have worked with refugees in London. Some areas of discussion:

The value of our making such a short visit.
The differences (or not) of working with refugees/victims of conflict in the UK context and those in their own country.
And the extent to which affected people coming to the UK context build new communities of support...
The need to return to Beirut with a follow up to our pilot project. And how that might be effected.

Later, I talked with Erene about her Playback theatre work and hope to see some of it before Christmas.