New Narratives Lab, Leeds, UK, March 19-20, 2025

What a New Narratives Storytelling Lab journey.

Diane Dever, Victoria Betton, Abhay Adhikari and I brought the New Narratives Lab to Folkestone in 2024 - and continued the journey with wonderful initiatives from around the area of Folkestone over the summer last year. It was a privilege to see such relevant projects find more clarity, creating feelings of welcome, and sending out clear invitations to their audiences.

Abhay Adhikari, Diane Dever and I had the exciting opportunity to bring a next full edition of the Lab to Leeds on March 19-20. Our participants joined us from Leeds, Sheffield, Calderdale, London, and Amsterdam, representing legal and voluntary sectors, theatre and the arts, as well as consulting and local councils. Together, we exchanged projects ideas, shared visions for participation, and worked on concrete next steps to welcome our audiences. A special treat was the input of participants of the Folkestone edition, who shared their experiences with the Leeds group.

Thanks to the incredible support of our funders from the INCLUDE+ Network, we’ve been invited to present the New Narratives Lab at the University of Leeds in November 2024. A big thanks as always for the valuable behind the scenes work of our fantastic evaluators Inez Boogaarts and Sandra Czerwonka.

For this edition of the Lab, we were hosted by the Woodhouse Community Centre, who were the perfect hosts—warm, welcoming, and incredibly attentive.