Writing Collaboratively in a Lockdown: Building Connections in Online Writing Groups with Refugees, Migrants and Local Communities

The Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) course has prepared refugee and asylum seeker students for university since 2017. The course adopts a holistic, life-story approach and engages students in reflection, co-creation and critical pedagogies that aim to create a welcoming environment that recognizes the effects of trauma on learning. Newham Poetry Group (NPG) is a community-led collaborative writing space that fosters newcomers and speakers of other languages in the London borough of Newham, England. In 2020 both OLIve and NPG moved online. Feedback was mixed: for some, the impossibility of travel pre-COVID times had made participation inaccessible, and through online learning they were able to access the support remotely. Others struggled with access to devices and the internet, the skills to engage in new software and building connections remotely. The teams also struggled to create the same welcoming environment, which previously happened through sharing space and intimate stories, in an online environment. In this chapter we discuss key issues faced from the point of view of facilitators and participants. We also propose ways to benefit from using technology as part of our participatory creative writing, and discuss how to make the most of hybrid models of creating welcoming environments and communities through affective practice.