About

In the UK, the escalating numbers of displaced individuals, particularly unaccompanied children, reveal the failure of current resettlement initiatives to provide adequate support or agency. Urban environments can present a tangled maze for displaced children, exacerbating their sense of dislocation and vulnerability and preventing them from belonging to their new country. This is due to inadequate accommodation, limited access to green spaces and third places (wider communal spaces between home and school/work) such as libraries and community centres.

This project, grounded in the belief in the transformative potential of engagement and collaboration, seeks to explore the experiences and perceptions of asylum seekers and refugee children within green spaces and third places. Utilising urban and cultural ecology frameworks, the aim is to empower children to reimagine their environments and assert their identities. The outcome is a toolkit and picturebook in collaboration with the children, offering a model of engagement applicable to public strategies to understand the needs of displaced children in London and beyond.

Focused on boroughs with significant populations of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children, like Wandsworth and Croydon, the project will proceed in two phases: initial engagement through reading circles, followed by collaborative mapping exercises and creative urban space recreation. The resulting picturebook provides a transferable and adaptable medium for dissemination to stakeholders to advocate for the inclusion of children as active agents in negotiating their own spaces.

Building upon my extensive experience of working with children in Palestine and my academic background in children’s literature, this project represents a culmination of my passion for empowering marginalised communities and challenging dominant narratives. As a Palestinian, I understand firsthand the profound impact of displacement on one's sense of belonging and identity. I aim to centre displaced children's voices and develop models where they become active agents in space negotiation.