Service users at Asha Neighbourhood Project have had a wonderful time taking part in a community project to create pennant flags celebrating life in Holbeck and South Leeds.
Flying High: Creating Flags of Awe and Wonder is being run at Slung Low in Holbeck by design charity Kinetika through a series of flag design and flag making workshops.
A design session was held first at Beeston-based Asha which works to improve the lives of women and children living in South Leeds. Here the women learned about the project and created designs for their flags.
They then attended a flag making session at Slung Low, along with other members of the local community, to transfer their designs to silk, learning Batik skills and using wax and paint.
Saeeda Shafiq, Fatima Saeed and Asma Akter were amongst service users taking part in the workshops and loved the experience.
Saeeda’s design was called Flower Time, inspired by the colourful flowers of summer while Fatima’s depicted the sun rising over the hills and was entitled Life is Full of Colour and Blessings.
“It was a totally new and different experience. I enjoyed working with the wax and painting the silk. The environment was big with good lighting giving good vibes and encouragement. If you feel comfortable it gives you the courage to do stuff,” said Fatima.
Saeeda added:
“The people were friendly, nice and helpful. They liked our paintings and said we did very well. I really enjoyed it.”
Asma enjoyed the experience so much that she returned to Slung Low the following day to complete her flag that she called Unity.
“Painting gives tangible form to our deepest emotions and experiences. We had two sessions where we tried to express our Awe feelings, I genuinely enjoyed them,” she said.
“My flag was inspired by Lalon Fakir, a renowned Bengali mystic, poet and social reformer of the 19th century, who spoke of unity and humanity, encouraging people to look beyond external identities and recognise the shared humanity that unites everyone.”
This post was written by Nikki Henshaw
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