When Omal Ahmed was 17, a therapist handed her a paintbrush. It helped save her life and led her to her passion.
A year and a half prior, Ms Ahmed had left the Eritrean refugee camp where she was raised, settling in Brisbane with her mother and grandmother.
Upon starting school in Australia, the former Somali refugee said classmates bullied her for not being able to speak English and wearing a hijab.
Ms Ahmed said the bullying became so bad that she considered taking her life, but a teacher at Yeronga State High School, where she was a student, convinced her not to.
"He made me come down … and he took me to this beautiful woman. I will never forget this favour. Her name is Taraka," Ms Ahmed said.
Taraka Hart was an art therapist and social worker based at the school through the Healing through Expressive Arts and Learning (HEAL) program.
Instead of asking Ms Ahmed to tell her what was wrong, Ms Hart had her paint how she was feeling.
"Black, it stands for darkness. It means I'm very depressed today. Blue means I am trying to control my emotions but I don't know what to do. Yellow means I'm trying to express myself. White is 'I'm happy. I'm feeling ok,'" Ms Ahmed said.
"[Ms Hart] would say, 'If you don't want to talk about it, it's okay. We can do activities'," she said.
Yeronga State High School Principal Timothy Barraud said the HEAL program helped students foster connections with school representatives, share an improved vision of cultural connection for the school, and support the school to build student resilience.
He said the school had a "culturally inclusive and responsive school community, with a proud history of honouring our commitment to social justice and equity for all students".
'I could feel the audience connecting with me'
For Ms Ahmed, now 20, the biggest challenge was to rise above her bullies and embrace her Somali identity.
Working with her HEAL therapist, she turned to drama to express her anger and it soon became a passion.
Last year, during her final year of high school, she appeared in a production called The Time Is Now at a Brisbane theatre, where she told an audience of hundreds the story of her family's journey to Australia.
"It felt perfect … I could feel the audience connecting with me in the heart," she said.
"It just made me proud of myself from where I'm from, because I've never been proud of myself – of my skin colour, or where I'm from, or where I was born, or my identity – anything in my life.
"I want to tell people what I've been through in life as a woman and as a young lady who's just coming up."
Push to expand into regional centres
The charity now wants to help refugee children in regional Queensland, where HEAL CEO Jamila Padhee says refugee families have far less support.
Around one third of permanent humanitarian visa holders who settled in Queensland between 2012 and 2021 were based outside Brisbane, Logan, Moreton Bay, Ipswich and Redland local government areas, according to data from the Department of Home Affairs.
"Young people in the regions don't have the same opportunities as what's available in Brisbane, simply because of the resources," Ms Padhee said.
"Children are our future, and we want to ensure that they have the same, equal rights to learn and to thrive from their learning and for trauma not to be a barrier," she said.
HEAL program manager Farah Suleman has worked with dozens of young refugees who, like Ms Ahmed, struggled after settling in Australia.
"It's a fun and creative way of reducing stress and isolation and you can foster connection and positive relationships through art making," Ms Suleman said.
She said often their artwork and creative activities reflect past traumas and experiences.
"There could be strong themes of a persecutor enacted as a villain, who could be seen as a shark in an image, for example, and the shark could be punishing all the other fish and keeping them in a jail.
"You can see that the shark is the perpetrator, the fish are the innocents in this vignette.
"Then perhaps the dolphin comes along and knocks open the bars and frees all the fish. So the dolphin's the hero – they're the rescuer.
"You see these themes re-enacted over and over again, in children's work. That gives you their story because children don't have access to the language or the emotions to let you know what happened or what they've witnessed – especially if it's been something they've witnessed in their early years."
The program uses art, music, dance and drama to help children address trauma and mental health challenges and runs in five Brisbane schools.
A pilot program was held at Wilsonton State School in Toowoomba last term, where nearly 10 per cent of students are refugees. It was the first time HEAL had been brought to students in regional Queensland.
Deputy principal Melita Patti said students' confidence began improving within weeks of the pilot.
"Our students are more confident in the classroom, in the playground, and we hope that the skills that they're learning with Farah will also help them beyond the scope of the school, in their personal lives as well," she said.
"To be able to offer supports like the HEAL program to help students to talk about their past experiences, learn some strategies that can help them moving forward with their education but also in life, has been very advantageous for us and the school community," Ms Patti said.
Ms Suleman, who ran the pilot, is now preparing an evaluation for Education Queensland. She will make the case for state funding to expand the program to other regional schools with large refugee populations – particularly in Toowoomba, Townsville and Cairns.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Education said it was up to school principals to make decisions about the resources they employ to support students' learning.
They said the state government takes bullying "very seriously".
