SISO Project | Refuge Music | People, Siso, Which, Mental, H

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SISO Project

Refuge are an acoustic band interested in community growth through music, and have now fully embraced their passionate interest of supporting an understanding of Mental Health issues, they are currently working in association with SISO (Safe Inside, Safe Outside). This partnership will culminate in the release of an album that will primarily challenge negative social perceptions of mental health, give an understanding of the impact of environment and community, whilst providing an arts platform for local poets, lyricists, artists and performers.

Due for release in October 2010, this new album titled ‘Allowed a Voice’ features the singles ‘Recovery’ and ‘In the Black of my Mind,’ both of which showcase lyrics written by mental health service users involved in the Leicester SISO (Safe inside safe outside) project. Leicester based youth organisation Soft Touch (whose mission is to use the arts to offer people with limited opportunities the chance to work together to affect positive change for themselves and their communities) will be producing the artwork for the project, ensuring that the entire process is inclusive of both individuals and groups who have experience and interest in the fields of mental health, exclusion and the negative effects of stigmatism.

'Allowed a Voice'

Album Released October 10th 2010

SISO has been created by a group of people with mental health difficulties, who have drawn on their own experience in responding to and recovering from their condition, with the support of Advance. SISO incorporates the ‘whatever works for you’’ philosophy allowing people to adopt varying techniques which promote self value, self management, confidence, character and assertion. SISO promotes a philosophy which encourages aspiration and hope for a life which focuses on what people can do, not what they can’t do. A philosophy, which challenges convention and takes into account the panoramic view of a person’s life & not just a life governed by a mental health diagnoses.

SISO believes that this should be a pin prick in the landscape, not the very definition of who you are. SISO is about people who are experts by experience, entering from the outside changing perceptions, plugging existing gaps through a new wave of creativity, ideas and solutions to long standing problems and inequalities which continue to hold people back, taking up their rightful place on society with renewed hope & optimism which allows people to challenge on all fronts and most of all dream again, helping make the recovery journey a reality.

Recovery (Link to Lyrics)

The poem or lyrics to recovery were inspired by Leon Herbert (SISO Manager) who requested that i write a poem on that theme.

The ‘room of tears’ was my own flat that I locked myself in for months, suffering from depression.

The staff from Advance housing provided me with many things to do that have helped to lift this depression.

The Safe Inside Safe Outside project have come up with a Tool-kit full of therapies, creative writing, jokes and contacts within the community, which are designed to help people like me. This is the ‘tool-kit’ of repair in my poem or lyric.

There is also a reference to emotional freedom. This is inspired by the emotional freedom technique that the therapist Lindsey Shaw has promoted within the Advance and Safe Inside/Safe Outside project.

The people who are participating in the project are helping to bring about (for each other and for mental health service users) a path to recovery from out of the ‘room of tears’.