News

Spiritual Well-being for Older New Zealanders

The interviewing of 40 older New Zealanders from many part of New Zealand was a privilege and result in the attached report. Feedback would be welcome. This was an amazing report and had quite unexpected results.

Download the PDF book Spiritual Well-being as part of cultural well-being by Penny Eames, commissioned by the Bishop's Action Foundation, New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand download here

Report to Arts Access Aotearoa Report

Report to Arts Access Aotearoa for the year to 31 December 2008 from Arts Access International for annual general meeting on 8 May 2009

News - February 2009

2008 was particularly busy one for Arts Access International with two books reformatted for public distribution and several important presentations on cultural well-being and cultural capital to audiences in Hong Kong and New Zealand. It also includes work in New Zealand on Cultural Well-being, particularly spiritual well-being, work in the United Kingdom on the needs of minority offenders, and on the art of refugee boat people during the time these refugees were living in the detention centres in Hong Kong.

Visits also included Beijing and Shanghai and Jakarta where we examined opportunities and cultural contacts.

The report to Arts Access Aotearoa now on this website at the end of this news section, gives a picture up until the end of December 2007. The 2008 report will be available in the next couple of months.

An aspect of the year has been the continued distribution and sale of the paperback edition of Cultural Well-being and Cultural Capital and the completion of the South Africa edition of Songbirds - the Art in Prison Training manual and now the reformatting for free distribution from this website. Both Songbirds, Art in Prison Training Manual and Cultural Well-being and Cultural Capital can be downloaded from this website and also from www.pseconsultancy.com as FREE downloadable books. Alternatively you can still buy the printed version of Cultural Well-being and Cultural Capital from publications@pseconsultancy.com.

The CD version of the "Songbirds art in prison training manual" is still available for purchase (see publications on this website) but now the downloadable versions are available free for both publications.

Dr Robin Philipp has made several visits to New Zealand.  Following on from a report he was commissioned to prepare in 2007 for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and in partnership with the Philipp Family Foundation, he is researching projects that stimulate young people to express their cultural identity through poetry and the visual arts.

The methods developed for this work are given in the WHO report which is with WHO permission being added to this AAI website. He is also undertaking research on well-being needs among health care staff and with this forged close working relationships with the Doctors Health Advisory Service in New Zealand, and in the UK, the Royal Society for Public Health and the British Medical Association.

Dr Philipp is also developing and auditing the worth of new self-help resources that utilise 'arts for health' approaches and stimulate interest in a culture focussed on 'the art of living'. Information about the projects is given in the Discussion Papers section of this AAI website. He has, with colleagues in the USA-based National Association for Poetry Therapy, just submitted a paper for journal publication on the benefits to cancer patients of engaging with poetry writing and appreciation. The programme was welcomed by them and identified worthwhile benefits to their well-being. Further, larger studies are planned.

Free Publication - Cultural Well-being and Cultural Capital and Songbirds - Art in Prison Training Manual.

Arts Access International is delighted to be able to offer their two major publications to anyone working in this field as free downloadable books. These are PDF books and are now offered to anyone with a broadband internet connection.

Printed Copies of the Cultural Well-being and Cultural Capital book is also available from PSE Consultancy at $US25 - publications@pseconsultancy.com

Follow this link to publications to down load these books

Anne Peaker Centre Report

Between January and April 2008 Penny Eames made several visits to England and conducted research into the Cultural provision for black and minority ethnic offenders in criminal justice settings in England and Wales. This report was commissioned by the Anne Peaker Centre for Arts in Criminal Justice and written in partnership with Creative Exchange. The report is available to members of the Anne Peaker Centre and accessible through their website under their research and evidence section.

One of the interesting findings was that to provide culturally relevant programmes for Black and Minority ethnic offenders (their term not mine) it is worth using the librarians and multi faith chaplains in the prisons as an appropriate and available resource to encourage arts programmes for the offenders to express their cultural well-being Particularly important was an acknowledgement of the spiritual well-being needs of these BME offenders.

Vietnamese Boat People and their Art

This is an outstanding project that brings together both art and history, and contributes to existing knowledge of art as social communication and history. Further it shows how art expresses social, environmental, emotional and spiritual well-being or distress.

Providing access to audiences for this art is also an objective that can be celebrated. This project ensures that the messages that art contains are seen as a contribution to history and are extraordinary in providing the team with an alternative view of events during this period of history from the view point of the Vietnamese refugees in the detention centres. This contribution of arts as history is exciting and this is an exceptional project. Arts Access International was represented by Penny Eames who as part of the team provided some advice and consultancy to the task of setting up an exhibition of this art.

Further research still being carried on by this project will see more evidence based research particularly in the role of the arts as a means of communicating history and of telling stories. This project has the potential to be highly significant in its findings. It could be seen as a model for similar projects in other parts of the world particularly where refugees have been held in "camps."

The exhibition included wonderful examples of community art - visual arts, embroidery, sculptures and sketches. These 800 works, by men, women and children, some of whom were artists before going to Hong Kong, drawn, embroidered and painted in the Refugee Camps of Hong Kong have been preserved and are now being analysed and used to further human knowledge of the way people respond in times of stress.

DADAA – West Australia – Book – Proving the Practice

During 2008 DADAA West Australia produced a really interesting and beautifully presented book on the arts in mental health and Penny Eames wrote a chapter in this book. The book called Proving the Practice - Evidencing the effects of community arts programs on mental health. ISBN 979-0-9803164-1-4 - it is available from DADAA West Australia ars@dadaawa.asn.au or website www.dadaawa.org.au The chapter written by Penny Eames is called "Doing Justice: How Arts in Prison can Heal". This chapter deals with mental illness in prison populations and suggests ways in which the arts can enable offenders to communicate. "What we have found in prisons is that individuals who cannot communicate retain anger, feel lost and become isolated, which leads to depression and mood disorders"

This is a significant book and should be in libraries throughout the world.

Spirituality Research – Older New Zealanders

As a response to the work with offenders in United Kingdom, Penny Eames became conscious that many of the offenders who were trying to make their lives better during their time in prison had turned to their faiths, particularly Buddhism, Islam and Hindu religions. When questioned, these offenders emphasised the importance of spiritual well-being, in defining who they are, and that it also gave them a possible way forward when they leave prison. Discussing this 'spiritual well-being' aspect of 'cultural well-being' led to a research project commissioned by the Bishops Action Foundation in New Plymouth www.bishopsactionfoundation.org.nz

The report on this, (which should be available sometime in the near future) will present the findings of research conducted during the second half of 2008 with 45 older New Zealanders in Taranaki, Waikato, Wellington and Kapiti Coast. It involved face to face interviews with a wide range of men and women aged between 50 and 90 years. The research gave participants the opportunity to share their understanding of the word "spiritual" and how they used their belief systems in times of crisis.

Interviewees included a broad range of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and the widest possible range of religions and spiritual belief systems. This range included Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, Islam, Atheist, Agnostic, Spiritualist, Sufi and Quaker older New Zealanders. Many of those interviewed belonged to "faith based" discussion groups, but others were located to fill gaps in the interview profiles. Almost all interviewees had thought about the topic and the interviews were mostly all held in the homes of those interviewed. They lasted between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours.

The findings that will be outlined in the report cover a wide range of views as to the meaning of the words "spiritual" and "spirituality." Also covered will be the equally wide range of ways that these older adults coped with crisis situations using their spirituality. These coping mechanisms included the expected responses including, prayer, meditation and talking with partners, family and friends, but less expected were the significant number of interviewees who used the arts, particularly writing and music, and the environment, particularly the sea, beach and the bush to enable them to work through the time of crisis.

Questions to interviewees included asking about their superstitions, their codes of behaviour, their membership of religious groups, and each interviewee was asked to describe a "spiritual experience or spiritual moment." Some of these special moments will be discussed in the paper as often they demonstrate the range and diversity of spiritual experiences that were shared. The interviews were free flowing with prompts to encourage "story telling" and deliberately allowed time for silence and reflection.