The Across My Bridge project concept was conceived of by Saeed Khan. Saeed initiated the approach to Beyond Empathy and brokered the relationship with the lead funding body: The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC).

The Beyond Empathy (BE) model uses art based projects to build relationships between young people, support agency staff and the community so that the groups can work together to address community issues. BE uses visual art, sculpture, music, hip hop, circus, dance, performance, film making and digital media to engage young people.

The Beyond Empathy process is an arts based intervention program that:

• Engages - provides new ways for support workers to connect with and engage young people who are outside the standard support agency network and can’t be reached by more mainstream means
• Changes - changes how young people see themselves and their future; helps them develop relationships; and build self confidence
• Develops - provides a forum for young people to develop vocational skills.
• Connects –connects young people with relevant support services so they are able to participate in society and realise vocational and life goals.

Across My Bridge was an innovative and responsive project that was designed to provide young people from the Muslim community with a ‘stepping stone into the mainstream’.

Across My Bridge broke the cycle of isolation so that these young people were not left feeling vulnerable and excluded from community. One effective way of creating a sense of balance is to provide arts and cultural interventions. Utilising a secular, integrated approach and targeting youth who (as a result of their isolation) do not access existing services, Across My Bridge provided a creative, safe space for these young people from the Muslim community to explore their lives and role in the community.

Across My Bridge implemented a broad range of arts and community development programs that addressed critical social dislocaters (e.g. cultural isolation, substance abuse, violence, recidivist crime) by building alternative pathways for social participation for young people of Muslim background who were experiencing difficulties identifying to and integrating into their own immediate community, as well as with mainstream culture.

Beyond Empathy processes were used to introduce alternative approaches that encouraged participants to be able to recognise their unique place in Australian society.

Across My Bridge provided the opportunity to influence a new generation of young people from the Muslim community, their families, local emerging artists, community support workers and individuals who may be recognised as leaders in their communities by building bridges between people of different faiths and cultures.

Across My Bridge provided a critical opportunity to access culturally sensitive arts workers who, given their unique sets of skills, experiences and values, successfully mentored the project participants.

Across My Bridge engaged young participants, who were identified as at risk, in a series of arts based workshops. Through the BE process, the workshops provided opportunities to connect the participants with support services in their community (youth services, school, TAFE, AOD support) and build skills to assist them in their participation in community.

The project involved participants in the Beyond Empathy Leadership Camps to provide further skill development. The Beyond Empathy team assisted the community, via mentoring, to deliver its own projects with its marginalised young people.

Across My Bridge is an arts-based strategy that:

1. Engaged with young people from the Muslim community in a positive and meaningful way by providing a range of experiences and opportunities, which acted as a catalyst for positive engagement in their community and into the broader community.
2. Provided local support services with new tools to better engage with young people who fall outside the community safety net, so that they were supported in new pathways to participation.
3. Provided new and emerging artists with arts and community development skills to sustain arts intervention projects in the local community independent of Beyond Empathy.
4. Used the creation and presentation of arts outcomes to build tolerance, understanding and recognition of the important role young people play in the development of healthy and harmonious communities.
5. Created understanding through a process of personal self discovery and creative self expression that was able to be nourished, supported and developed in the right space and environment.
6. Used the arts experiences and outcomes in the development of culture by providing a rich and rewarding framework in which positive stories and messages about migration, ethnicity, young people and cultural diversity were built.

Across My Bridge developed valuable partnerships between young people from the Muslim community and their artist mentors, who provided an environment that encouraged creative self-expression. This process also provided an environment that brought opportunities to address issues of low self esteem, generational differences and encouraged exploration of these issues and provided pathways for employment and education.

Across My Bridge workshops were secular and inclusive and used current models and methods successfully developed by Beyond Empathy and previously used to develop the lives of young leaders from Indigenous and CALD communities in regional NSW and the Greater Sydney region.

Across My Bridge addressed common misconceptions faced by participants by presenting opportunities to share stories that connected people across differing ideologies and cultures and built empathy, tolerance.

For further information about this project, please contact the BE Office on 02 6772 0101 or at admin@beyondempathy.org.au