ONE YEAR TO GO ... CULTURE, HOPEPUNKS AND PHOTOVOICES
Less than one year to go! As a Coventry based social enterprise we are proud for our city to take centre stage being named UK City of Culture in 2021 and excited to see the preparations for one of the biggest years in the city’s history.
Our core work focuses on supporting people to cope with many of life’s challenges, frustrations, fears and isolation. With an increasingly robust evidence on how the engagement with arts and culture can improve health outcomes and strengthen communities, we are championing a creative approach through community activities that connect research, health, art and culture.
In the build-up to 2021, our Hope culture programme included a Gratitude wall that to date captured nearly 12,000 expressions of gratitude, a Writing gym with Theatre Absolute that gave parents of children with autism an opportunity to try out creative writing and the creation of an animated poem and typography book by students from Coventry University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities who used transcripts from our Hope cancer courses to create the art works.
We were excited to discover the word hopepunk coined last year. Defined by Collins English Dictionary as (noun): a literary and artistic movement that celebrates the pursuit of positive aims in the face of adversity. Making all of our Hope participants and commissioners genuine #Hopepunks.
“Hopepunks sincerely care about something or someone. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about demanding a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts. ”
We are pleased to see the growing number of researchers who are keen to work at the intersection of health and arts.
As part of our re-investment policy we were proud to sponsor Clair Dempsey, a talented postgraduate researcher from Coventry University, with her exhibition amplifying the voices of people Living with Endometriosis.
The exhibition was a great success and raised awareness of this often invisible and misunderstood medical condition.
This year we are looking forward to working together with Clair on co-creating a digital Hope Programme to help alleviate the emotional burdens and help women and transmen living with and affected by Endometriosis to cope better.
More #hopepunks and #endowarriors to join the thousands people who already benefited from our programmes.
Are you or would you like to become a Hopepunk?
Get in touch!
#cityofHope #thisiscoventry
If you are interested in our creative approach, volunteering with us, hiring our Gratitude wall or finding out how your organisation and your clients may benefit from our Hope and Flourish programmes, please do not hesitate to contact us.