A “Kinder world” is a series of storytelling and arts workshops supported by 2050x fund. The workshops were held in July 2021 at The Old Mill Gallery & Bookshop in Palnackie. Kirsty Turpie who has been leading this effort, talked to us about this experience.

By Kirsty Turpie

Over two Fridays at the end of July, myself, a Community Artist based in Dumfries, alongside Lucy and Ed, coordinators of The Old Mill Gallery & Bookshop in Palnackie facilitated Storytelling and Art workshops for young people, supported by the 2050x Fund. The workshops offered an opportunity for local young people to explore the themes of environmental sustainability, climate change and human virtues in an imaginative and explorative way.

We held the workshops in the garden at The Old Mill which is bursting with life due to Lucy's passion for gardening and growing vegetables; it made for a lovely space to work in. The first workshop was centred around stories from Robin Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass. After giving the young people a tour of the gallery and bookshop we sat down outside to read the story of Sky Woman together; a fictional Native American creation story about how the Earth was made. The story talks about gratitude and caring for nature and animals, this was a great starting point for a conversation with the group about how to care for the environment around us. The young people created a collective painting inspired by the beautiful imagery in the story. After this we learnt about how Native Americans braid sweetgrass and braided some bracelets of our own.

The second workshop was based around a story called ‘The Glorious Cow’ which is from Igifu, a collection of short stories by Rwandan author Scholastique Mukasonga. The story is told by Karekezi, a young boy from the Tutsi tribe who is learning how to be a cowherd from his brothers and father. Their cows are their life. They spend all day caring for them, they sit upright when drinking their milk to respect the cow and the cowherds dance and write poems in their animals’ honour. The young people really enjoyed hearing the story and having a discussion about their relationship with animals and the environment. It was then on to the exciting art activity of creating their very own papier-mâché cow. The group got very creative and instead of giving it two horns like the cows in the story they decided to give it one and make it in to a uni-cow!! Our groups 'glorious cow' was decorated with colour and garlands and they also made some miniature cows out of cardboard to complete the herd. It was lovely that they all worked together and continued to chat about the story whilst creating.

Although The Old Mill has a programme of workshops and events for adults these were the first ones they had run for young people and they were really well received by the young people and their families. The Old Mill are really keen to promote environmental sustainability through their work, so it's hoped that building these relationship with local young people will now open doors for more conversations and projects to happen on this theme. The workshops were a great opportunity to educate and empower young people on the importance of caring for their local environment and the world at large. A big thanks goes to 2050 Climate Group for making this possible!

Guest Blog: “Kinder world” a series of storytelling and arts workshops