It’s been a busy time since the end of the One Suitcase project, and one of the best parts of the project was meeting colleague Rumana Yasmin and ultimately piloting and planning a new amazing project.

Rumana is a Bangladeshi writer and the founder of Bok Bok Books, publishing children’s books which tell South Asian Stories and provide representation for children in the UK who are from South Asian Descent.

She introduced me to the Desiblitz Truck Painted bus. Based in Birmingham, Desiblitz are a Community Organisation who work within Asian communities and use the bus, which was painted by world renown Pakistani Truck Painter Haider Ali to engage people of all ages and backgrounds.

Together we’ve been piloting taking the bus to venues as the Mobile Museum of Migration, talking to people about artefacts, sounds and memories brought to Teesside from across the world, their travelling stories and memories around the familial objects. Our two pilot events , which were both hugely positive were supported by Kirkleatham Museum and Middlesbrough MELA. Both organisations have pledged to support our ongoing larger planned project.

Our project involves taking the bus, Mobile Museum and activities to schools, events and communities around Teesside where we’ll use stories, artefacts and activities to explore and find items which arrived to the area through migration.

We’ll work with classes, communities and those who have already been involved in the One Suitcase project to co-create a children’s book, which will be narrative in part, with characters based on Bangladeshi birds, tying in with traditional Bangladeshi tales and the illustrations on the bus and partly stories of the objects and information about them, written by Rumana which I will illustrate.

Some of the organisations interested in sharing artefacts and co-creation include schools, both Primary and Secondary, organisations who work with Newly Arrived Communities, and an ESOL (English as a Second language) group.

The book will represent the diversity of communities in Teesside, and will share not only the migration stories of the artefacts, but of those who came and continue to travel, like Rumana from Bangladesh and my family from Ireland, from across the world to make Teesside their home.