Mindful Puppetry Packs

With the official end of shielding on 1st August 2020, many vulnerable people in Cornwall faced incredible anxiety as they prepared to increase social interactions and spend more time outside in an area now full of summer visitors.

We wanted to do something to try to help people in this situation, so knowing how puppetry can be a great activity to focus and calm the mind, we designed 'mindful puppetry packs'. Each pack included mindfulness exercises using different kinds of objects and simple puppet-making ideas. At the time, we were operating under the name Nosey Hedgehog Puppetry.

Thanks to funding from FEAST Cornwall's Re-Ignition 2 grant*, and their funders Arts Council England and Cornwall Council, we were able to create 50 physical packs (including craft materials) and offer these for free to those members of our community who we felt would benefit from them the most. We would like to thank Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change (CN4C), Falmouth Library and the Dracaena Centre, who helped us distribute the packs, and a special thank you to CN4C for inviting us to run a puppet-making workshop with their Women's Wellbeing Group.

Covid-19 safety:

Hygiene measures put in place included regular hand-washing and sanitisation of surfaces during the process of making up the packs, and once sealed, all physical packs were stored for 72 hours before delivery.