hands on hearts
What people say about us...
I think it’s an amazing project. Everybody has put their heart into it.
Anika Miller Jones, one of the founders of Calthorpe Community Garden (where the project began
“What I like about the project is that people get together, sit down, do some art and create work.
They seem to get a lot of satisfaction from what they create.
It puts them in a setting where they talk to other people, where they meet other people…and that goes a long way to help a lot with people's mental health.
I found that going out to the few [workshops] that I’ve gone out to definitely uplifted my mental health.
The focus is not internal, it’s more external. And it’s more engaging and meeting a diversity of different people… it’s just emotionally it makes me feel a lot better.
I found a lot of satisfaction from doing it and I look forward to doing more, simply because it does make me feel a part of something which is bigger than myself.
To be around a table with schoolchildren, with their parents, pensioners, people from different cultures, it’s quite an experience if you’re not used to seeing people everyday in that mixture, it does enlighten your experience of making something - everybody doing their separate item, but being part of something bigger.
I found that people you wouldn’t meet in everyday life, you meet around a bunting making table and it sort of gives you a perspective on community and society, a wider scope, if that makes sense.
And I actually learnt how to use embroidery hoops. That was a skill I thought I’d never learn!”
Brij, volunteer and project advisor
The coming together of community and working towards a collective goal on a project like this is important and brings us together in ways that you don't realise is needed.
You also get to find that by the time you get to see everybody's work together you actually find that we are more similar than we are different - because there are lots of love hearts, there are lots of hands, there are lots of flowers...and we are just all more connected than not connected.
And also it's good fun - we have been taken away from the craft element of life, and the using of our hands element of life and we have lost creative skills like knitting and sewing and connecting with colours and fabrics, so actually being able to do something like this - when you've been removed far from it for 40 years after leaving school - is a beautiful thing.
Kim, workshop participant
“The bunting workshops at Holborn Community Association were great - the ability to create something personal but also that's part of a bigger project really appealed to the participants.
“One of the workshops was part of our Fun Palace event, with a range of participants from young children through to older adults taking part, which really demonstrated the versatile nature of the project, with everyone feeling really proud of
their creations at the end!”
Hazel East, former Head of Arts at Holborn Community Association, London Borough of Camden
Hands on Hearts has kept my group busy with finger work…Parents enjoy it as it doesn’t mean they have to be neat or [that there is] any right or wrong way to do this. Therapeutic and relaxing.
The bunting is amazing. The parents have been amazing and [the] volunteers were amazing. Thank you so much for providing us with this wonderful opportunity.
Khadiza Isla, Wellbeing Group Facilitator, Rhyl Community Primary School, London Borough of Camden
“The bunting workshops at Holborn Community Association were great - the ability to create something personal but also that's part of a bigger projec
"I didn’t realise how much this project has helped me find self love and a passion that I have a creative drive for.”
It’s been really good. Being able to see everyone’s work and everyone’s creativity.
Being a volunteer has been amazing, because it’s helped me with my confidence, it being more like a form of self care as well, because it got me back into my love of embroidery.
It’s helped sparked my passion for embroidery and sewing - I learnt to how sew on a machine…
I loved it. It’s helped me improve my confidence and my social skills. I used to be quite an introverted person and being able to come to these places and talk to more people - it’s helped me [to come] out of my shell more.
I like the mindset of the project - the hands on hearts - it being about community…It’s really sentimental - when someone puts their hand on their heart. It’s a form of respect, in my community and in my culture, men and women aren’t allowed to shake hands so often times the women will put their hand on their heart…it’s a form of respect. The message behind it, the meaning, it means a lot.
Sumaya, volunteer.