For Our Mothers is an international celebration of lyrical tribute writing, by young women aged 11-16, commissioned by Mulberry Schools Trust in 2025.
We set students the challenge to write a tribute to their mum (or a maternal figure) in any written style, and to do so with beauty and power, using a variety of literary techniques.
Twenty schools and over three hundred students from the UK, Mexico, India, Australia, Nigeria, Kenya and Malaysia made use of the resources we designed, and the opportunity of a workshop with Applied Stories' artistic director Fin Kennedy.
The ten beautiful audio tributes above are the wonderful result, along with fifty more published in a free anthology (available to download below).
The resources we designed to support this project are still online, and available for free, to inspire others to pen similar tributes independently.
They include a workshop plan for your school to hold its own creative writing workshop for mothers and daughters, to generate ideas for their tribute, as well as a suite of downloadable online worksheets.
To send us any feedback, or to commission a similar project for your school or trust please get in touch.
An introduction to the Resources folder and how to use the free handouts within it.
Writer Fin Kennedy gives some examples of metaphorical writing, and sets students an exercise to adapt plain statements into their own metaphors.
A deep dive into Sonnets Are Full of Love from 1862, including a worksheet for students to begin to map out their own Beginning, Middle and End.
A deep dive into The Raincoat, a tribute triggered by a memory, and showing how words can conjure scenes in our mind. Contains a worksheet to develop scenes from a story about your own mum.
Writer and Mulberry staff member Afsana Begum reads her own poem to her mum A Rose in Two Lands.
Writer and former Mulberry student Tania Khan reads her letter tribute to her mum, Tapestry of Strength.
Writer and Mulberry staff member Afsana Begum discusses the process of writing A Rose in Two Lands, with tips for students about what she learned along the way...
Writer and former Mulberry student Tania Khan discusses writing her letter tribute to her mum, Tapestry of Strength, with lots of advice for students on how to get mum talking...
Copyright © 2025 Applied Stories - All Rights Reserved.