Get involved: Five top tips for taking part in our Hope Restored project.
Join us for a week-long creative writing project on the theme of human trafficking. Follow #hoperestored23 for a daily prompt. From 20-27 January 2023, Restore Glasgow is partnering with Foolproof Creative Arts on a creative writing campaign. Foolproof is a Glasgow-based Christian arts charity run by Fiona Stewart, who also happens to be a member of the Restore Glasgow prayer group.
From 9pm on Friday 20 January until Thursday 26, we’ll post a new prompt each day at 9pm on our social media channels. Then you’ll have 24 hours to write a response (a poem, a song, a blogpost, a photo or a drawing) and post it using the hashtag #hoperestored23.
You can get involved by posting one piece or setting yourself the challenge of writing something each day. If you’re determined to write more this year, then this is the perfect way to find some motivation!
To get you started, here are five top tips:
- Get started
There are all sorts of barriers to creativity. You may be busy, feel that it’s frivolous or think that you have nothing to say. You may worry about what other people think. The beauty of a campaign like #hoperestored23 is that it’s a short-term, focussed activity and nobody is judging what you write! So, this is the perfect opportunity to give it a go. No-one is marking your work, and the fact that a number of people are participating means that you benefit from the sense of being part of something bigger. All we ask is that what you write is kind, true and hopeful.
2. Get informed
Human trafficking is a hard topic to tackle, and finding hope in the darkness of the subject matter might feel like a challenge. However, the act of creating anything – a poem, a piece of art, a social media post – helps the creator wrestle with the subject (which, incidentally, is one of the reasons it’s definitely not a waste of time). We will post some information each day, and you can find out more about the topic by checking out articles on this website, or from organisations such as SOHTIS, IJM UK, A21 and Just Love. You might find that once you begin to investigate the facts around trafficking, you’ll become more aware of it in mainstream media and entertainment. You might also want to join the monthly Restore prayer group as a result!
3. Get writing
The first line is often the hardest, and, although it may sound obvious, the best way to start writing – is to start writing. Just get something down on the page and let that shape what comes next. For this challenge you don’t have to stick to poetry – you could write a series of social media posts, a short story, a song, or you could decide to paint something or use photography or crafting. You can (and should!) go back over what you write and edit out any unnecessary or repetitive phrases in order to make it clearer and better. But unless you write something, you’ll end up with nothing! You could think of your creative piece as being like a lump of rock that contains a statue – your job is to define the statue as best you can by chipping away at any words or phrases you don’t need.
4. Get posting
This is optional. You don’t need to share what you write, and we hope that the exercise alone is a joyful, helpful one. However, if you are happy to, we would love you to share your work so we can create a gallery of creative expression! You can post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using #hoperestored23, and tagging Restore Glasgow and Foolproof Creative Arts. You can also use #poemsofhope and #poemofhope.
5. Get sharing
The great joy of taking part in a campaign like #hoperestored23 is that you are able to see how other people approach the prompt. You’ll probably be astonished at how different other people’s work is from yours, and how this variety helps shape and inform your understanding of the subject of trafficking. It’s also really encouraging when someone likes or shares your work, so please do them the courtesy of reciprocating!
So, follow the five tips, and get involved! We’re looking forward to seeing the results and raising more awareness about human trafficking.
Fiona has been writing and performing spoken word poetry for around five years and during the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, she curated an online poetry campaign where participants wrote daily responses to the conference themes for the duration of the event.
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