Exploring movement and cultural identity for mental health support
Cultural safety, Peer support, Belonging, Accessibility
This co-designed dance project used African cultural dance to support mental and physical wellbeing. The project included health professionals, creative practitioners, and people with lived experience. The sessions focused on shared movement, music, and informal support, helping to build belonging and reduce isolation.
The use of dance transcended language and literacy barriers while building connection, confidence, and creating joy. The project modelled effective cross-sector partnerships between health professionals and communities. Movement became a shared language, one that welcomed difference and allowed participants to engage on their own terms. The environment was emotionally safe and culturally grounded, with trusted facilitators and peers offering encouragement and support.
One woman, recently arrived in the UK as a French speaking asylum seeker from the DRC, joined Ephrata’s creative wellbeing sessions with low confidence and physical fatigue. At first unsure about the dance-led activity, she slowly began to connect, helped by the African music, cultural familiarity, and warmth of the multilingual team.
Over the following weeks, she danced freely, co-led a warm-up, and shared her own music with the group. She said the sessions helped her feel more like herself and gave her energy and pride.
“I used to hide away. Now I dance like I remember who I am.”
Facilitators observed a transformation in her confidence and mood. She started encouraging others to join, expressed interest in peer leadership, and said she no longer felt alone. Her story shows how identity-affirming creative practice, grounded in cultural relevance and emotional safety, can reduce isolation and support wellbeing for displaced women.
One young woman, recently arrived in the UK as an unaccompanied asylum seeker from Sudan, joined the GMYN & Music Action International project with limited English, low confidence, and no prior experience of creative activity. In early sessions, she mostly observed, quietly staying on the edge. She told facilitators she was “not good at music” and felt unsure about joining in.
The project team, made up of culturally representative and trauma-informed practitioners, used fun, informal approaches like singing games, call-and-response, and group beatmaking to create an emotionally safe space. With time and encouragement, the young woman began to participate, first through shared rhythms, then by singing in her own language.
Over the weeks, she grew in confidence and creativity, collaborating on original songwriting and performing publicly at Contact Theatre. Outside the sessions, she began to describe herself as “musical”, a shift from her previous self-identity as “just sporty.”
“When I went home last time I was singing the song we learned here!”
“It made me very happy.”
Facilitators observed a powerful transformation. “She contributed so much. It was beautiful to see her confidence grow.” Through co-designed, culturally grounded creative activity, the project reduced her sense of isolation, supported her cultural identity, and gave her a renewed sense of belonging. Her story demonstrates how accessible, non-clinical creative practice, when grounded in lived experience and co-created with participants, can play a significant role in emotional recovery, identity-affirming support, and connection for young people from global majority communities who have experienced displacement.
