Migrants Rebuilding Their Lives with Creativity and Care

IOM's North Africa Migration and Development (NAMAD) project is helping migrants along one of the world's most challenging migration routes to rebuild their lives | Stories from Algeria

Algiers, Algeria – Migrant women and children gather around tables, paintbrushes and pens in hand, the room filled with a mixture of excited chatter and quiet reflection. They are not just painting and writing stories but healing. For these women, creativity has become a way to reclaim their voices after enduring the profound hardships of difficult migration journeys.

While some journeys are well-planned, straightforward and enriching, others are unexpected, challenging and dangerous. In Algeria, migrant women and children who have endured challenging migration journeys find refuge at IOM's temporary centre for voluntary return* offering casework support, psychological assistance, and skills training to help them rebuild their lives. Among the psychological support offered is art therapy—a transformative tool for healing and self-expression that empowers these women and children to rediscover their voices.

Rose, one of the residents at the centre, fled Cameroon to escape life-threatening discrimination. With limited options at home, she undertook a perilous journey to Algeria, only to find herself without support, forced to sleep on the streets with her baby, and struggle for necessities, which took a severe toll on her well-being. Desperate to escape her situation and rebuild her life, Rose turned to IOM for assistance in returning to Cameroon.

Rose found respite at the IOM centre in Algiers, where migrants in vulnerable situations, receive food, accommodation, medical care, and psychological support that improve their mental health and well-being. 'The first night here was great—they gave me a place to sleep, clothes, soap, and everything my baby and I needed', Rose recalls. 

The centre is supported under IOM’s North Africa Migration and Development (NAMAD) project, which aims to strengthen livelihood skills, and protection support for people like Rose. The project works with migrants and local communities across Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia, to build skills and resilience. 

The centre offers a range of activities for both psychological support and livelihood skills training. ‘There are a lot of activities going on here. We learn a lot in this centre’, Rose says. In terms of skills training Rose was provided with skills in cosmetology and marketing, where she learnt how to make her own soap and oils and sell them, giving her a way to create a sustainable-generating income upon her return to Cameroon. 'It makes me feel powerful and hopeful, because I know I have learned a lot of things here. Today, if I go back to my country, I have something that will change my life from the first day', Rose says.  

For psychological support Rose particularly enjoys art therapy activities, as this provides her a space where she can express herself and reflect. ‘This is the part I enjoy the most, the drawing. The drawing activity is great’, she says holding a painting that reads ‘thinking about my home in the village.’ For Rose, painting has allowed her to remember happier memories of home, rebuilding her sense of hope for the future once she returns.

Loum, who also left Cameroon to escape from a difficult situation and in hope of better prospects, spent five years in Algeria working various jobs but struggled with poor living conditions and low wages. Due to traumatic experiences during this time and health problems, Loum looked to return home and found IOM to support her. 

Painting has allowed Loum to reflect deeply on her migration experiences, giving her an outlet to express her emotions. Loum shows us a painting she made during one of the sessions, pointing to a love heart she reflects, ‘Here I have two paintings that represent hearts, it means love, love that represents everything in life’. 

The painting class given at the centre provides migrants an opportunity to express themselves in ways they haven’t done before. ‘They get to use these colours, and they get to use these different materials to talk and express about their journeys, but also to imagine how would their maybe hopeful and better future would look like’, states Hadjer Bouguerche, one of IOM Algeria’s workshop facilitators. 

Alongside painting, IOM’s workshops also uses scriptwriting to give migrants an opportunity to reflect and talk about their journeys in different ways. The aim is to not only give them room to express themselves but also see their stories in a more empowering light. ‘We want to create different ways for them to express themselves and express what they have been through in terms of hardships and frustrations’, explains Hadjer.

Rose, who also took part in this activity, believed the act of writing down her memories and feelings was therapeutic experience as she says, ‘we write about ourselves, and we present…I feel great, I feel nice.’

Gift also left her home in Nigeria and found IOM after a difficult journey. When she arrived at the IOM centre in Algiers, she was feeling hopeless, but the centre itself plays a crucial role in fostering this sense of belonging through its communal spaces and group activities which are designed to encourage connection, creativity, and learning, helping the resident migrants not only heal but also rebuild their confidence. 

Gift soon found a place of belonging after making best friends with another migrant in the centre called Precious. ‘We are just together like family. When we are sad, we help each other have fun together. We talk. It's really great’ she says. 

The friendship of Precious and Gift is an example of this community. They both enjoy taking part in the activities together, motivating each other along the way, as Gift says, ‘maybe if one person is sleeping, we wake them up. Come and do your activities…motivation from the friendship’.  

These activities allow her to deal with anxiety and stress - ‘it's helped me…sometimes when you're sitting, you think a lot, which is very risky to your health. And those activities, they help me, mentally, psychologically, like many ways, they help’, she says.  

Precious, Gift’s best friend, also went through a difficult migration journey after leaving her home in Nigeria, experiencing personal tragedies along the migration route. For Precious the workshops provide her a respite from trauma and depression as she says, ‘those activities help me, I laugh, we play.’ 

Both the painting and scriptwriting activities are part of an innovative model of holistic care used at the centre, which combines creativity, skills development, and psychological support. This ensures that individuals are not only healing from past trauma but are also preparing for the future, as they are provided with tools to foster independence and resilience. 

Since April 2024, under IOM’s NAMAD project, over 250 migrants in Algeria have received this holistic protection support. Most migration occurs at the intra-regional level, meaning neighbouring countries are often the primary destinations for people on the move. By focusing on these regional migration routes, projects like NAMAD can more effectively protect migrants and address the factors that make migration a necessity rather than a choice, such as increased vulnerabilities and lack of opportunities. Funded by UK International Development from the UK government, NAMAD provides support across Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia. Through healing trauma, building livelihood skills, and fostering resilience, IOM strengthens local communities and works towards a more sustainable positive global impact. 

*DARV – Dispositif d’accueil pour le retour volontaire.