Art therapy and Humanitarian NGOs

Artolution + Medair

Medair’s Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services (MHPSS) portfolio has grown enormously in recent years and in September 2023 we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with U.S. based organisation named ‘Artolution’ who specialise in collaborative art-making experiences. Recognising a strong alignment in values and vision, this partnership looks to compliment ongoing behaviour change and social protection programming with creative arts programming. The purpose of this story series will be to shine a light on the impact of the Arts in MHPSS.

The first Arts in MHPSS collaboration took place in Lebanon and concluded early in 2024. Additionally, there was a global launch scheduled for November 2023 intending to introduce the Artolution method to MHPSS teams in South Sudan, Kenya, Jordan, Poland and Ukraine.

Artolution method

Artolution addresses global and local challenges by training and hiring teams of local teaching artists to ease dynamic educational arts programming in crisis-affected communities through painting collaborative murals, building interactive recycled musical sculptures, performance and a wide range of artistic disciplines. They provide creative platforms for youth participants to tell their own stories, build positive relationships and learn tools for self-expression and collaborative artmaking. Through innovative and collaborative arts practises, programs strengthen mental health and wellbeing, promote peaceful co-existence between diverse communities and support livelihoods.

• Pillar 1- Mental Health: Through collaborative art-making practices and workshops that focus on relationship building, Artolution programming strengthens the mental health and wellbeing of participants. They focus on level 2 of the global mental health and psychosocial support interventions pyramid ‘Community Support’. Activities are designed to strengthen self-esteem, self-confidence, positive relationships within a community, providing a safe creative space to discuss stigmatized issues, mental health awareness and a re-envisioning of one’s identity and self-concept.  

• Pillar 2- Social Inclusion: Programs promote inter-group cooperation where tensions exist between ethnicities, religions, nationalities or other social groups. In addition, marginalized communities have a public platform to shape their own narratives and envision the future they wish to build through public artmaking.  

• Pillar 3- Livelihoods: Artolution trains, certifies and provides paid work for teaching artists from vulnerable communities, who ease all our programs. In addition, select projects provide community participants a variety of skills and mentorship to strengthen their ability to earn a living and provide for their families.  

• Pillar 4- Awareness: Participants learn about critical issues affecting their communities and then become advocates by creating public art that educates their neighbours. Topics range from public health messaging to gender-based violence prevention; the promotion of nutrition to universal human rights.

Complementarity to Medair's approach to MHPSS

The arts empower children, adolescents, and communities to create their own dialogue structures, starting essential conversations and developing public artefacts that stay in their environments. This aligns with Medair’s approach to MHPSS by fostering social cohesion and community resilience, essential for long-term recovery and stability. Reclaiming spaces devastated by tragedy through artistic expression renews a sense of possibility and hope, mirroring Medair’s efforts to restore dignity and joy by providing safe spaces for healing and growth.

Using creativity and the arts to build bridges and provide safe spaces for discussing challenging issues complements Medair’s efforts to address complex psychosocial barriers. This approach ensures individuals can express themselves and find support in a non-threatening environment, crucial for effective MHPSS interventions. Additionally, the arts significantly boost confidence and self-esteem among children, leading to enthusiastic participation and a sense of connectedness, which aligns with Medair’s focus on building individual and community resilience.

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DEEP DIVE into dialogue and promotion of social cohesion

When a community can work together, it infuses the value of taking a collective creative action. This collaborative process, then bridges into the conception that each of the individual participants can become agents of social change within their communities. The behaviours from the children can show a marked, differential from the beginning of curiosity to elevated levels of enthusiastic engagement. The bridging of positive behaviours manifested by being able to collaboratively create and cultivate the messages and become advocates to their own communities for healthy and constructive modalities of behaviour change and the value of self-inspired communal dignity.  

Promoting increased connectedness through fun, play, engagement, and joy acts as a catalyst for discussing challenging issues and aspirations within the local community. Allegory, storytelling, and metaphor are used as tools for social cohesion, with a particular emphasis on image-making as a relational bonding agent. This highlights the value of arts and creativity in breaking down boundaries and building connections across different ethnic groups, regions, and socio-behavioural backgrounds. Collaborative public activations provide a final forum to generate communal pride, with small celebrations in each context involving adults, children, and adolescents to acknowledge and honour the establishment of new artwork created through the community’s collective efforts.

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This content was produced with resources gathered by Medair field and headquarters staff. The views expressed here are those solely of Medair and should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of any other organisation.  

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