PROJECTS : Title: Asylum Seeker Narratives Partners: Albanian Youth Action Supported by: Arts Council England, Awards for All, Lloyds TSB and The Wates Foundation   Dates: April - December 2003 Following the work on Hannah and Hanna and Club Asylum, Company of Angels started working with Albanian Youth Action (AYA) in Spring 2003 and holding a series of weekly drama workshops with additional week-long workshop taking place both in the spring and summer holidays. We thus constructed a programme of work that aimed towards performance of short, devised or written narratives live and on video. We spent the first three months introducing the group to dramatic techniques of character and narrative and just allowing them to really enjoy the sessions. The participants then used film as a medium to record the project's progress which they took part in shooting and editing under the guidance of a professional video-maker. Our interest in using video was based upon the tradition in mainland Europe of very low-budget film and video, sometimes of feature length, in which non-professional teenagers act in well-written and well-directed narratives. The settings are usually realistic, the acting standard is quite high, and the cutting and continuity is much less snappy than teenagers are used to. Yet because the films feature teenagers, and are about teenagers, young audiences enjoy the different and deeper rhythm of this work. The approach of such films can be subtle and intelligent and, at best, the experience is more profoundly engaging than much of the TV and cinema with which young people are so familiar. In this project, Company of Angels aimed to educate and motivate young asylum-seekers to create new narratives and to achieve greater personal empowerment and to disseminate the resulting scripts and videos to schools and other places where they may have a beneficial effect upon promoting a greater understanding of the plight of young asylum-seekers. Throughout the development and delivery of the project Company of Angels benefited from the advice and the support of ICAR (Information Centre for Asylum Seekers and Refugees) and STAR (Student Action for Refugees). The final version of the film, I am a Young Boy Just Like You, is available from info@companyofangels.co.uk The film was screened at the EUnet Arts Conference in Cork in 2004 and at the Discovery Festival in Stirling and the Medical Foundation in London in 2005.