Creativity, community and changing the narrative: Josie from Breadwinners @ Grooveschool Podcast
Breadwinners’ Josie Kyan recently joined Tahlee Johnson on Grooveschool’s What’s Going On podcast to talk about community, creativity and supporting young refugees and people seeking asylum to build their lives in the UK.
Joie from Breadwinners @ Grooveschool podcast
Josie shared her own journey from working in film and photography to joining Breadwinners, where she found a way to bring together her creative background with work aligned with her values.
“It’s all about people perceiving other people who don’t look like them as equals.”
Creating opportunities — and community
At Breadwinners, young refugees and people seeking asylum aged 16–25 receive work experience, training and mentoring, alongside opportunities to build confidence, connections and community.
Josie also spoke about how listening to young people has shaped our work. Through our Participatory Action Research, young people told us they wanted Breadwinners to do more to advocate for refugees and people seeking asylum. The challenge was to find a way of doing that that felt authentically Breadwinners: positive, welcoming and led by young people themselves.
That helped inspire our creative advocacy work and the audiovisual exhibition HEY! SALAM! HOLA! BWAKEYE!
Created with young people, the exhibition combines portrait photography and audio storytelling to explore identity, belonging and the things that bring people joy. Rather than defining people by displacement or difficult experiences, it asks a different question: how do you want to be seen?
As Josie explains:
““It’s not focusing on the fact that they’ve all had this really difficult ending of some kind. It’s actually just about other parts of their life that bring them joy.””
What comes next?
The conversation also looks ahead. As Breadwinners grows, our focus is on reaching more young people without diluting the quality and one-to-one support at the heart of our programmes.
For our creative advocacy work, the ambition is also to go further: bringing these stories into more public spaces and helping more people encounter the individuals behind the headlines.
A huge thank you to Tahlee Johnson and the Grooveschool team for inviting Josie onto What’s Going On and giving us the space to share our work.
Watch the full podcast: What’s Going On Podcast — Episode 10 , check out GrooveSchool
Discover HEY! SALAM! HOLA! BWAKEYE!, our audiovisual exhibition co-created with young refugees and people seeking asylum, celebrating identity, belonging and joy through photography and storytelling. Explore the exhibition → // contact josie@breadwinners.org.uk if you are interested in hosting the exhibition
And if you’d like to get involved with Breadwinners — as a mentor, partner, funder or supporter — visit breadwinners.org.uk/get-involved