When Nicky Parker of Amnesty Poland invited me to join her and an inspiring team of academics, artists and educators from Germany, Poland and Malta on a creative journey centering children’s voices and rights, I felt that it was the start of something truly special.

I met the Seen and Heard team first by Zoom to hear of their vision to prove that stories really do have the power to help young people find their voices. This is a recurrent theme in all my writing and I was able to share some of the ways that I have worked as a writer and arts educator in communities to invite young people and their families to express themselves and their hopes, dreams, fears and desires through the arts, storytelling and oral history.

As a storyteller of novels, plays, short stories and poems, I have been constantly drawn to asking the question, ‘Where does the river run gold for children’s rights today?’ a question that echoes the title of my environmental novel set in a near future world Where The River Runs Gold. I write these novels for young people knowing that they see, hear and experience the world as it is and that through stories, they can explore finding their own voices to be empowered to express themselves.

Over three days, Nicky Parker and I joined the Seen and Heard team in Malta to work with hundreds of students, creatively and chorally. The Seen and Heard team in Malta, Giuliana Fenech, Sandy Calleja Portelli, Charlie Cauchi and Andres Algeciras had done a huge amount of outreach, engagement work so that the students that Nicky and I met had a deep understanding of the project. We could not have stepped into the schools and be welcomed with such trust if the children had not already claimed the project as their own.

Nana Josie’s magical painting palette from my first novel Artichoke Hearts travelled with me to Malta as a metaphor for the power of self-expression as a lifelong process. I explained that every time that the artist and activist attempted to mix a colour to paint something that contained feelings that she wanted to express, was precious. The palette teaches young people that it’s fine not always to know precisely how to express something, but often the arts can be the catalyst to releasing worries, anxieties, fears, dreams and hopes in our own voices. In a world in which images of perfection proliferate in all aspects of children’s lives, a safe space to feel, to play and to experiment with what you want to express and how you want to express it, becomes even more vital.

These times have prompted me to adopt a path of radical hope, to apply many textures and colours from working in communities, theatre and writing onto the palette of engaging with children today. I think of it as a re-wilding of creativity that has the ability to hold individual voices within a hopeful unifying spirit. Practically speaking, this creative ‘re-wilding’ mixes storytelling, talking about the child inspirations behind the young characters in my novels, writing, debating, doodling and even singing together.