The Heartstone Odyssey book and the linked exhibition provides a practical tool through which to directly challenge prejudice/intolerance in its many different forms and hate incidents / hate crime which may follow.
Story Circles provide:
- a story-based mechanism to help children understand and define ‘hate incident’ and ‘hate crime’
- a mechanism to go beyond the surface looking at the motivation behind intolerant actions as well as the actions themselves
- a route to build empathy and understanding, to stop seeing people as ‘the other’, that they are not that different from yourself;
- a route to raises confidence/self-esteem and give children and adults working with them, whilst helping children become better readers and communicators;
-
a mechanism to explore and understand the importance of the media and images in influencing ideas
-
a mechanism to explore identity and ‘being proud of yourself’;
-
a route to build resilience
-
a route for schools to address these issues without requiring extra time as it is based on reading a book and discussing the issues in a regular ‘safe space’;
-
a route to upskill staff, building their own confidence to successfully deal with these issues working
If you would like to take part in a story circle, please contact Rifaquet.Ali@bradford.gov.uk
For more details about the book, its author and the project as a whole, please see the website at http://heartstonechandra.com/projects/heartstone-education-projects/anti-hate-crime/