Crafting Heritage for Wellbeing in Iraq

Crafting Heritage for Wellbeing in Iraq (CHeWI)

The CheWI project is an interdisciplinary project funded by the British Academy. It brings together a team of archaeologists, heritage professionals, psychologists and creative practitioners across the UK and Iraq to understand how the nexus of crafting, heritage and wellbeing might be used to promote wellbeing benefits for people who have experienced conflict in Iraq. The project will be co-produced, driven by the team and local participants in collaboration, to ensure the outcomes are relevant and beneficial to Iraq and reflect Iraq’s complex, often intersectional, societal needs. A key aim is to create a robust evidence-base for arts and crafts in improving personal and social well-being in a country that has one psychiatric hospital for 38 million people. We want to determine specific ways that engaging with heritage through craft has potential to rebuild personal and social well-being and dignity that are key to underpinning sustainable, inclusive peace in Iraq. We wish to demonstrate to Iraqi stakeholders and policy makers that such flexible, low-cost reflective practices play a critical role in fragile post-conflict contexts.

The project is a collaboration between the American University of Iraq Sulaimani (AUIS), the University of Southampton and the University of Oxford.

For more information: 

Instagram: @chewiproject

Blog: https://chewiproject.wordpress.com

Email: Zena.Kamash@rhul.ac.uk