Skaped exists to educate young people about their human rights and raise awareness for humanitarian issues through the creative arts, a passion shared in the friendship of Sandy Abdelrahman and Thay Graciano – founded in London, supported by Social Ark. Reaching out to schools and young adults through themed workshops and community projects, Skaped aims to promote a culture of political conversation and awareness in the emerging generation, unconditionally accessible and communicated through creativity.
The mission of Skaped is deeply rooted in the life experience of its founders. Migrating to London in their childhoods from Egypt and Brazil, respectively, Sandy and Thay experienced the difficulties of new life in a new country. With high expectations stemming from a rose-tinted global view of England, formed by Mr Bean and Harry Potter, both were met with a far bleaker reality. For Sandy, language barriers and bullying made school a difficult place to go; while, for Thay, hopes of a grand education were knocked by an underfunded school, unable to support a department for history nor geography. Thay reminisces that seeing her highly gifted parents both settle for cleaning jobs represented the societal struggle ahead of her; yet, neither her nor Sandy knew enough of the relevant politics to aid their aspirations.
Considering Skaped’s creative focus, it becomes unsurprising to learn that Sandy and Thay found their niche in the arts. Where other routes had failed, the universality of creative arts spoke powerfully into their situation. Coming over from Egypt, Sandy spoke no English, “So”, she strongly feels, “How I came out of my shell was through drama, through the voices of creativity”. Sandy felt an affinity for approaching political subjects through art: “In Egypt, you can’t talk about politics … so what do you use? You use the idea of art: that doesn’t mention the political system, but mentions the corruption that comes behind it.” Thay recollects that, in theatre, “The emotions that I felt of oppression were talked about”. Having met in their teenage years, Thay and Sandy found that many of their conversations revolved around these experiences; before long, a vision began to formulate – “Sandy said, ‘We’re just complaining. Shall we do something about it?’”.
This is where Social Ark enters the story. Having become involved with political activism in her late teens, Sandy hoped to begin a project which would help to counter the negative experiences she had personally suffered; something to educate young people on human rights issues and political conversation. With her exciting idea in mind, Sandy began to approach business development programmes, but, rather than getting the support she needed, Sandy felt treated “like a number”. She explains her feeling that “as a migrant woman, there’s hardly any potential for you in society, let alone to be able to say ‘I have an organisation’”.
Things changed when Sandy connected with Lisa, our CEO. All of a sudden, she was treated “like a human being” and what once was an idea started to become a reality. With Lisa’s guidance and the support of Social Ark, Sandy’s project was refined to include her main passions: politics and the arts. Practically, we were able to help with proposal writing, business planning and the envisioning of Skaped’s mission – but, from the perspective of Thay (who joined in the early process as a co-founder) and Sandy, it was the relational, personal aspects of our support which meant the most.
“They’ve been massive believers in what we do – our cheerleaders, really! They really have our back.” – Sandy Abdelrahman
“Lisa really believes in young people. She empowers us to go for the change that we want to see. There is no, ‘you can't do it’ with Lisa. She will always push you to do what she knows you can do. So, it's an amazing chance… because usually when you come from a working-class background, your parents may be too busy, working 12 hours a day, to be supportive.” – Thay Graciano
With Social Ark’s help, Skaped has become a champion for the political education of young people, promoting equality, freedom, justice, dignity and inclusiveness as its values. Continuing to encourage creativity as their medium, Sandy and Thay have recently run projects such as ‘Me and My Community’, for budding local photographers, and the ‘Global Young Voices Blog’, which aims to vocalise the humanitarian concerns of young people from all over the world.
Both women view the young generation the same way as we do at Social Ark:
“Young people are the future”, “A lot of young people don't feel like they have a voice. You do have a voice!” – Sandy Abdelrahman.
“We can't just rely on adults. All the human rights protections and the future issues that we are going to face are being exacerbated by adults who are now in power.” – Thay Graciano.
“We didn't get the political education we needed; we didn't feel like we had any power. We had to fight for it and make a platform where we could speak. A lot of young people need to be given that platform”.
2020 has been an unprecedented global shake-up. COVID-19 has shaken our lifestyles, lockdown has re-framed our relationships and the death of George Floyd has ignited a much-needed re-evaluation of human treatment towards one another. In this cultural moment, Skaped has never been more apt. Looking to the future, Sandy and Thay are planning fresh ways of pursuing their mission in the COVID-scarred world’s ‘new normal’. In particular, they feel moved to raise awareness for gender equality and environmental action; their belief, though, is that wealth inequality and pervasive mental health issues are overarching, insidious crises, from which many others stem.
A key element of Skaped’s method for change is the simple power of talking:
“We believe in having conversations with people you disagree with. That's how you build a future. That's how you create compassion in politics. You have to speak to people you disagree with … you listen to the conversations and you realise that actually, you agree a lot more than you disagree. We've got to push for that! And that is what human rights is, it’s getting everyone to understand that we have things in common. We are all human.”
- Thay Graciano
To finish, we asked Sandy and Thay to speak about why they’d encourage any young person with a dream to do as they did and connect with Social Ark! Here’s what they had to say:
“Anyone who wants to start a charity or social enterprise needs to find a mentor and a program, like what Social Ark offers. If you don't, I don't quite know how you would do what we're doing, to be very honest!
I think Social Ark not only empowers people, but it also gives them all the tools. When creating something new, people need be free to pursue what they want to do, without feeling like they have to compromise. So, Social Ark holds your hand and makes sure you're well-addressed and comfy.”
At Social Ark, our heart is to see young people step into the boldness that they were born for. Skaped is a project that we’ve loved being involved in and we can’t wait to see where our journey with them will take us in the future!
Written by Will Washington
