Saturday Newsletter: October 28, 2023

A note from Laura Moran

Dear Stone Soup community,

I am thrilled to share that we, through the Stone Soup Refugee Project, are now able to extend the opportunity to participate in our writing workshops to young people living in refugee camps in many parts of the world. This week marks the first of a four-part series of creative writing workshops offered to young refugees living in Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Nakivale is one of the world’s largest refugee settlements and currently hosts approximately 120,000 refugees, mainly from Northeastern and Central Africa.

In our first session, thirteen young people gathered around a laptop in a church hall at Nakivale, from 5:00 to 7:00 in the evening. I ran the session over Zoom with the help of our co-facilitator and founder of Humanitarian Service Team, our partner organization based in Nakivale. Though we had to be creative to overcome various technological challenges (using the video function on Zoom, the audio function on WhatsApp, and the chat function on both!), the session was productive and, according to student feedback, invigorating for all. This workshop is based on the Anthropology of the Everyday summer course Stone Soup offered over the summer in collaboration with Society of Young Inklings. We will eventually facilitate creative writing exchange opportunities for those who participated through our summer programs and participating refugee youth. The material produced in the workshop will also feature on our Refugee Project web portal.

Our deepest thanks to all of those who have contributed to make this and other Stone Soup Refugee Project initiatives possible. I humbly ask for your continued support. If you are able to donate, please click here. In addition to Stone Soup operating costs, a portion of your funds will go directly to Nakivale Refugee Settlement in order to help with the data costs to run the workshop via Zoom and to provide tea and snacks to participants.

In gratitude,

Visit the Refugee Project