Vital Signs Part 3

Collaborating with the long-term displaced people in Africa means direct engagement with and being in relationship to, some of the biggest global challenges we face; chronic poverty, hunger, social injustice, inequality, lack of education, gender-based violence and climate change. The Vital Signs project takes place with people whose lives are permanently affected by all the above hardships. Vital Signs is a project which began through invitation by UNHCR Mozambique & UNHCR Malawi to scope how our ways of thinking, working & collaborating might have a positive impact on the long-term displacement of refugees in Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi and Maratane Refugee settlement in Nampula Province, Mozambique. The refugee population represents multiple nations: Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Ethiopia. Scoping missions were conducted in May & October 2022 to understand the nature of life and environment in which people live and to value and co create a reciprocal ways of working, through relational practice and knowledge exchange

This trip saw the responses of the "Pockets of Love" piece by LCF students shared back with the original makers in Dzaleka. In turn, the DAL makers shared a new piece - an embroidered map of where they live and a new response piece, for us to bring back to the UK. This new work will be created into a further design brief for our students to respond to in the next academic year.

This trip also marks the moment that DAL became a legally registered refugee led organisation and recipients of a piece of land to build their premises upon.

• https://dzalekaartslab.org