Young People Take Art To Heart
As part of their rehabilitation process a number of young people working with the Agency’s Community Services Project in North Belfast produced a series of murals for the play area of the Thorndale Family Centre.
Offering emergency accommodation for homeless families, single women and one-parent families Thorndale, based in Belfast, is run by the Salvation Army.
Thorndale Project Manager Dawn Richards initially made contact with Community Services in North Belfastasking for volunteers to paint a series of murals that could be placed onto the play area wall of the hostel.
“Creating a safe, secure and stimulating environment for our residents is one of our key objectives” said Dawn.
“To help us enhance the communal play areas, we asked Community Services North Belfast to create a number of colourful murals that would generate a relaxed and calming atmosphere,” she continued.
Siuban Regan, a social worker with Community Services in North Belfast who helped co-ordinate the art project, said, “After a group discussion we agreed to become involved in the project and make it a key part of the court orders given to the young people.”
“To help encourage story telling between the parents, project workers and children who reside at the hostel we decided upon a fairytale theme for the murals using the internet for inspiration,” she continued.
“The young people working on the project took a real pride and enjoyment in creating the murals, which provoked many interesting conversations around story telling and the tradition of story telling in our culture,” concluded Siuban.
The completed murals, which were designed to be both stand-alone or part of a larger scene, have now been placed within the hostel and are having a positive impact on enhancing the children’s play area.
