EMERGENCY’s Storytelling Workshops This April in London

This April, EMERGENCY UK hosted two free community workshops at New Vision’s outdoor space in central London, bringing people together through storytelling, creativity and collective reflection on solidarity, hope and a more peaceful world.

The first workshop, led by award-winning writer Taran Khan, explored storytelling as a form of listening.

Through writing exercises, group discussions and reflections on first-hand letters from EMERGENCY’s projects in Gaza, Sudan and Afghanistan, participants considered how to write across distance and difference with care, empathy and context.

Participants were invited to write letters in response to the people in, or those who wrote, the letters from EMERGENCY’s projects. Many reflected on the difficulty of imagining another person’s experience while still trying to connect, finding similarities through the differences.

One participant wrote:

You may not know me, nor I you, but your ability to care for your community, carrying frail bodies with strength and tenderness, speaks volumes across languages and continents.”

Another reflected on the challenge of understanding suffering represented through numbers and headlines:

I see the destruction in numbers, and these numbers I have always found incomprehensible and unmanageable… Maybe in this imagination, my ignorance has been corrected.”

And another on anecdotes that resonated with their own experience:

I wanted to tell you that when there were riots in my hometown when I was 11, I would go to the roof to get away from the too many relatives who were crowding the house, and read a book. I would look for stories where things were still funny and interesting and normal sized. I hope you found the same feeling on the beach, in the water, with your inflatable orca.”

The second workshop, led by Sendb00ks, invited children aged 5–12 to imagine what a utopia – a world without war – might look like through drawing and storytelling inspired by The Little Prince. In an open-air setting, children designed colourful book sleeves and shared visions of peaceful, joyful worlds built around kindness, nature and community.

Each book also had a bookmark with a drawing made by a child who has been treated at EMERGENCY’s clinic in Al-Qarara, Gaza, creating a tangible link between the children here and there.

Together, both workshops created space for reflection, creativity and solidarity, highlighting the role storytelling and imagination can play in building connection and hope.