Join us!

Apart of Me is a charity that helps young people transform their grief into compassion.

We are offering a unique, therapeutic programme that will support 10 young people who have lost loved ones, have battled through their grief and are coming out the other side to transform their grief into creative power to help others going through dark times.

The first stage is a series of 10 workshops that will be delivered by our highly skilled team where the young people will learn:

to take care of yourselves through your grief
to support those around you through grief and difficult life situations
to take meaningful actions in your community for causes you feel passionate about

We are looking for 10 young people (16 - 25), from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have experienced bereavement, have had some grief support, and are interested in training to be a peer mentor.

If you are interested or know someone who could benefit from it, please contact ada@apartofme.app for more info as soon as you can. We would love to hear from you!

Grief Activism

This is deep activism, soul activism that actually encourages us to connect with the tears of the world. Grief is capable of keeping the edges of the heart pliable, flexible, fluid and open to the world and as such becomes a potent support for any form of activism we may intend to take.
- Francis Weller

Introduction

Everybody grieves, over time we have learned that there is an opportunity in grief, it is part of being human. Each of us is unique in their own grief, and it has the potential to serve a community in some way.

When we connect with grief we develop our feelings and emotions, we have empathy, we connect in shared experiences.

Grief and Loss are intertwined. We will be exploring grief on a multitude of layers:

Global Grief - George Floyd, Sarah Everhard, State of our planet
Local Grief - Loss of a playground, Grenfell, An area changing, Death of fellow pupil
Individual - Loss of loved one, loss of a lover, a best, a pet, Leaving school

Intentions of the programme

To learn the wisdom of grief
Feel supported in your grief
Personal Development tools (Looking after our mental health/wellbeing, Understanding of self, leadership)
Learning and sharing facilitation skills
Learning the power of ceremony and ritual

Programme outline

10 weekly sessions in September - November 2021. Dates are to be confirmed.

Sessions 1-5 - ‘My Experience of Grief’

Focus - ‘My journey with death’

Community building (group agreements, trust, cohesion)
Offering a transformative and brave space to explore your own grief
Learning to relate healthily to your grief
Learning practices, tools and skills for exploring grief in a group setting

Session 5-9 - ‘Supporting others with their grief’

Focus - ‘Transforming my grief into compassionate action’

Exploring other forms for facilitating grief spaces (Apart Of Me, Death Café, Death Over Dinner, rites of passage.....)
Exploring the prompt: “If Stage 1 of this project is to support the 10 of you, and Stage 2 is for 100 other young people in a similar situation, what might we want to offer to them?”
Revisiting what was valuable in Sessions 1-5, ideating and practicing ideas together by giving participants opportunities to prototype alongside us
Co-designing Stage 2 as much as possible in 4 sessions, exploring what your role and involvement will be

Session 10 - Closing Ceremony

Focus - The importance of good ending, and good beginnings

A ceremonial ending (e.g. fire ceremony)
Celebrating and affirming participants and their commitment and performative closing co-designed between participants and Visionaries Facilitators