Release The Creativity

This month has been very much about style, look and a whole load of people finding and tapping into their creativity with some amazing results.

Artist and PhD Student, Michael Atkins has continued to work closely with a number of the guys, teaching them various drawing techniques and really encouraging each person to find their inner creativity. It is said that childhood sexual abuse stifles a child’s creativity and that when as adult survivors we fe-establish and tap into our inner creative, that we kick start development again. I have to say that i have witnessed this first hand. Watching members of this project go from either not having ever picked up a pencil or not picked one up for a long time, to creating these incredible pieces of artwork has been truly awe-inspiring.

But its not just pens and pencils that have been worked hard this month, camera’s have too!

John Newton, one of our Expert Advisory Panel members has led a small group each week to wander through the city to create some stock images that can be used in the guide. There have been some amazing images captured such as these below:

We welcomed a new member to the project too. It’s always so good to see new guys joining us, they’re always made to feel so welcome. The thing about this project is that in order for us to achieve the finished result, we have got to work together. We always knew that but its so much more of a joint effort then anyone could have imagined. Sexual Abuse as an act happens in isolation, silencing the boy who then often keeps this to himself well into later life. Never speaking about it and doing everything he can to ensure that no one ever gets too close and see’s the pain inside. So he isolates himself for much of his life. That is why this project and bringing guys together is so important. Its breaking the silence as we work.

Our design guru (he will be embarrassed about me saying that) Dave at Jam PR has been collecting all the guys work, as its created, and has begun to pull ideas together. By November, we will have draft pages and we can start to see what we need to cut down and add to and, well, begin to build our masterpiece!

A few of us also met with members of The Men’s Room project at one of their ‘Men Only’ sessions. It was an absolute honour and pleasure to meet the lads who were so respectful of us and what we had to say. They came up with some great ideas for us too of what we could call our publication, including:

• THE big issue
• MEN read this now
• Dropping Bombshells
• Facing Reality
• The Hidden Agenda
• Victim to Victor
• The Issue You Dont Want to Talk About

They have their own launch of their work in December so we’re looking forward to that, but we’ve a tonne of editing and pulling together we have to do in November. So until then…

Au revoir