Embroidery (tatriz) and Syrian refugees: Exploring loss and hope through storytelling

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Abstract

Canada is now home to at least 44,615 Syrian refugees. Of these refugees, four out of five are women and children. There is a clear need for an increase in mental health resources, resource accessibility, and social connection for Syrian refugees. This paper describes a Syrian refugee women’s embroidery program that provided both an accessible art therapy group and a way for the participants to process feelings of hope and loss. Postgroup questionnaires indicated that the women experienced a sense of pride and mastery over their completed artwork, built new friendships and community, and felt connected to their homeland through the embroidery. One-on-one interviews were held to collect the participants’ stories. The participants’ artwork and stories are summarized in this paper, and the stories are available in full as supplementary material.

Citation

Relevant Evidence Summaries

The evidence was reviewed and included in the following summaries: 

What can help refugees process traumatic grief?

There is limited strong evidence on interventions that specifically target traumatic grief. Prolonged and traumatic grief are usually closely associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and therefore many interventions target PTSD with grief symptoms as an auxiliary diagnosis. There appear to be some differences in interventions that target grief as a result of loss of […]

About this study

AGE: Multiple Age Groups

DIRECTION OF EVIDENCE: Positive impact

ETHNICITY: Middle Eastern

FULL TEXT AVAILABILITY: Paid

GENDER: All

HOST COUNTRY: Canada

HOST COUNTRY INCOME: High

INTERVENTION DURATION: 12 Weeks

INTERVENTION: Embroidery

JOURNAL NAME: Canadian Journal of Art Therapy

OUTCOME AREA: Grief

OUTCOME AREA: Mental Health

POPULATION: Refugees

REGION OF ORIGIN OF PARTICIPANT(S): Middle East

STRENGTH OF EVIDENCE: Suggestive

TYPE OF STUDY: Suggestive evidence

YEAR PUBLISHED: 2020

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