‘Love Oswestry’ has run 3 winter lantern festivals in Oswestry. This features opportunities for children and families to create lanterns and participate in a lantern parade. Cultural opportunities like this benefit all ages, promoting community adhesion and decreasing social isolation.
At Designs in Mind, we work with adults living with mental health diagnoses. Our Members support lantern-making workshops, and last year created over 200 lanterns for the community. We would like to create a ‘winter wellbeing workshop roadshow’ to visit old peoples’ homes, and put on winter craft workshops in our studio. These would be made most available to underrepresented groups, such as perinatal mothers, Bulgarian community group. The workshops will be free, and we will advertise them on local networks, social media and website. Through partnering with a local youth Drama group, we will create free-to-access performance workshops based on the giant caribou puppet featuring at Love Oswestry 2025.
What we'll deliver:
- 15 lantern workshops for children and families to make their own 'snowdrop' or 'masquerade' themed lantern.
- 3 winter wellbeing art workshops as a winter wellbeing roadshow for older people.
- 5 winter wellbeing art workshops promoted to underrepresented groups to run at our studio on Cross Street
- Design and production of 250 lanterns for the 'Love Oswestry' lantern parade.
- Marketing of the 'Winter of Wellbeing' workshops to the community including posters, web-page
- 4 performance workshops with drama practitioner
Why it's a great idea:
‘Winter of Creative Wellbeing’ will promote inclusion and increase wellbeing through drama and art workshops for older people and under-represented groups, as part of ‘Love Oswestry’ Festival. We will create a ‘roadshow’ of workshops for older adults, providing opportunities for wellbeing-based craft activities linked to the lantern festival. ‘Love Oswestry’ 2025 will feature a giant lit lantern puppet, and our ‘winter of creative wellbeing’ project will also enable 4 drama workshops for mixed age groups based around street theatre and puppet performances. Through our warm, encouraging craft workshops, we will involve the community in the run-up to the ‘Love Oswestry’ festival, such as adults living in old people’s homes, and underrepresented groups. These opportunities will introduce participants to creative practices that benefit wellbeing. They will be more involved in the lantern parade which is an opportunity for the community to come together in the winter months.
Steps to get it done:
- Creating the marketing materials and ensuring an easy sign up process via a book now button on the website
- Communicating with local old person's homes to arrange our workshop roadshow.
Previous participants in the 'Love Oswestry' workshops and parade have said;
- Thank you for all that you all did to be truly inclusive. It was amazing and the result brought tears to my eyes more than once.
- My child was incredibly happy to do this, she enjoyed making new friends and this opportunity for her was amazing. It was a very fun activity and it helped her socialize with other people.
- ‘Winter of Wellbeing’ will allow us to provide these opportunities for a wider range of people, including those of younger and older ages and also underrepresented groups.