Essex, December 2024
Since Autumn, we have been piloting “The Hope Bridge”. This is alongside our year-long project taking The Community Table into the large Home Office-run Wethersfield Asylum Centre located on an isolated former RAF base in rural Essex.
Through group photography walks, printmaking workshops and music and cultural food sharing, The Hope Bridge aims to gently build connections between small groups of men housed temporarily inside the camp and local people living in surrounding villages.
In settings across the UK, we have seen how lack of such opportunities can lead to misunderstanding and mistrust, and negatively impact on the mental health and well-being of people seeking asylum and housed next to established communities; while where bridges are nurtured, the opposite can flourish.
In mid December on a somewhat drizzly, cold day, we led a small group of young men from the camp on a local circular photography walk through picturesque villages. Joined by a volunteer who runs a music group inside Wethersfield camp, we followed a beautiful river, encountering horses, windmills, and an old water mill.
Half way through, we stopped at a village bookshop run by two women who also volunteer inside the camp. Here we were warmly welcomed and offered coffee and homemade cake, with one young man exclaiming, “This cake is very good, I have never had one like this. Can I have the recipe?’ Finishing for pizza back where we started we were met by a group of local villagers, some who also volunteer. Over lunch, there were conversations about home, language and the universality of sharing food & drink. One young man said, ‘This has been good for me’’; another: ‘after 5 months, today is a good day’; and the feeling across the group seemed mutual.
Funded by Tides Foundation, on the recommendation of Ben and Jerry’s Foundation Fund, the project is led by artist Raman Feiz, with artist/art therapist Thomas Etheridge. In the New Year we hope to widen The Hope Bridge to include more men from Wethersfield camp in shared activity with local people who to date have had no connection.
