COLOURS OF THOUGHTS

Changemaker: Kiranjeet Kaur

Country of Implementation: Malaysia

With rises in conflict, violence, and persecution, there also comes a rise in refugees having

to continuously find ways to flee their now dangerous homes. Malaysia is a country that

hosts many displaced people, with over 25,000 of them being under the age of 18. Having to

flee their homes would also mean having to lose access to skills, confidence, social circles,

aspirations, and dreams. This only hinders the developmental growth of a young

refugee, especially within their teenage years. To top that off, they are often shied away from

these developmental rights due to the inequality and unfriendly reception of citizens. To

counter this, Kiran decided to use an evidence-based medium, which is art, within her

project to foster this development as well as to raise awareness on the lack of refugee

rights. “Colours of Thoughts” focuses on providing educational art workshops to refugee youths between the ages of 12 to 18 with a partner organization called the Malaysia Social Research Institute (MSRI).

In the workshop, refugee youths are taught on insights and skills related to art,

narration, and storytelling, and are also taught on how to fully utilize these skills to create

their own individual stories in order to reach out to the citizens of her country with their

artistic voices. The created artworks are then posted Instagram (@coloursofthoughts) and www.coloursofthoughts.com, along with the stories of each creation. This serves as a platform to allow these young refugee voices to be heard through their artworks. Through the implementation of this project, these individuals will be able to utilize the skills learnt in order to continuously channel their voices through their artworks, and the goal of doing so would be to 

cultivate empathy and understanding amongst  privileged individuals like us to continue fighting for the rights of refugees for a more inclusive and receptive world. Art has

the power to do just that. Kiran strongly stands by the phrase, “A picture paints a

thousand words, and sometimes, one look is all it takes to be heard”.