Over the last 3 months, we have had the opportunity to engage with young people in the public school around the country to share with them the SELFMATTERS’ Community Programme called BLOOM. It is a social and emotional learning workshop that introduces young people to storytelling and the power of art as tools for expression and learning emotional strategies in dealing with unresourceful emotions.
With the Covid-19 crisis as the backdrop for learning at home and work from home, the experiences of people like fear, anxiety, sadness, boredom, fatigue, coping, overcoming, depression, irritability are emotions that signal to us about something that we need to recognise, understand, label, express and regulate.
Globally, we are in a pandemic but the experiences of people are extremely different where they are. These emotions shouldn’t be ignored. It is their right to feel and to understand what these emotions tell them so they can make choices and decisions to lead themselves and move forward to learning and growth. The positive actions they are taking are agencies for transformation, to construct for better normal and to create a new narrative when the school opens in October 2020.
