Hope, Identity and Expression: Community Narratives from Flintshire and Wrexham
In Flintshire and Wrexham, the Co-producing Community Narratives project worked with groups whose voices are often underrepresented in traditional engagement: vulnerable young people and migrant communities. Through creative, trauma-aware practice, participants were supported to express lived experience, concern and hope in ways that felt safe and meaningful to them.
Rather than seeking tidy narratives, the project made space for complexity, emotion and contradiction, recognising that connection to place is shaped by much more than geography alone.
Creativity as a safe space for expression
In Yr Wyddgrug, sessions were delivered with an established drama group for non-school-attending teenagers at Theatre Clwyd. Many participants were living with significant challenges, including trauma, social isolation and disengagement from formal education. Working within a trusted routine, sessions used storytelling, illustration, devised performance and short-form filmmaking to explore issues that mattered to the group.
Participants gravitated toward dark comedy, satire and surreal narratives, addressing themes such as violence, drugs, power and injustice. While their work focused less on the local area, it offered powerful insight into lived experience, shaped by social media, popular culture and global concerns. Creativity provided a way to communicate indirectly, allowing participants to retain control over how their stories were told.
Belonging, barriers and hope in Wrexham
In Wrexham, the project worked with the Bom Dia group, a Portuguese migrant community based at Tŷ Pawb. Supported by translation, participants created “Jars of Hope” using mixed media to represent their aspirations for themselves, their families and their wider community.
As participants made and shared their work, conversations emerged about the challenges of living in Wrexham, including language barriers, access to services, unreliable transport, racism and the cost-of-living crisis. Participants spoke with particular concern about children, education and poverty, alongside environmental issues such as littering, which they associated with a lack of civic pride.
Creativity, dignity and visibility
Despite these challenges, the creative outputs were filled with hope. Words such as love, equality, peace, health and opportunity featured strongly, reflecting a desire for inclusion and belonging. Across both Flintshire and Wrexham, the project showed how creative practice can provide dignity, visibility and voice — particularly for those navigating systems that often feel inaccessible or unwelcoming.