Getting ready to celebrate 10 years of Kitabna...

We are in the final stages of finalising the launch of the Kitabna Toolkit for story-writing with communities affected by conflict and disaster in Yerevan this July 2024. Kitabna means "our book" in Arabic, and our toolkit is a set of creative writing practices developed over the past 10 years, most recently with Armenian colleagues delivering psychosocial support to refugees of the Artsakh conflict. The toolkit launch is accompanied by the findings of a three-month pilot of the toolkit with children in Yerevan and Berdavan, on the border with Azerbaijan, showcasing their experiences since the conflict escalated in September 2023.

We received funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to develop this toolkit, which shares a simple methodology, requiring minimal resources to help people working with children and adults to access a safe space and express their ideas. It is, in many ways, a tribute to everyone who has helped Kitabna - Our Book grow, since we started out in 2014: www.kitabna.org.

We certainly hope to see members of the Kitabna team, and our Armenian partners and colleagues for a wonderful occasion this summer!

More coming, soon, including a dedicated webpage for the toolkit, which will be freely available to download and use in English, Armenian and Arabic (and hopefully many more languages)...