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Before Maida Al Doulimi arrived in Australia in 2013, she spent nine years in a Syrian refugee camp having fled war-torn Iraq.
Her story is one filled with sorrow and heartache that brings tears to her eyes when she recounts it.
"During the war I lost my mother and sister.
"I lost my brother, my other sister has been kidnapped and tortured, and my husband had been kicked and harassed.
"We had to flee to Syria to protect the rest of the family and to save my husband."
Mrs Al Doulimi, speaking through a translator, said she was being treated for psychological stress, trauma and anxiety.
She has low self-esteem and said she had only started to realise that she had to proactively recover from her experiences.
As part of her medical plan, Mrs Al Doulimi has been prescribed art therapy by her doctor as a method to help her overcome anxiety and post-traumatic stress.
For the past eight weeks, she has been attending a pilot program, Arts on Prescription, run by aged care facility Hammond Care at the Liverpool Migrant Resource Centre in Sydney's south-west.
The referral-based drawing and painting workshop brings together other Iraqi refugees now living in the local area.
"Having this company, other people who have suffered like me, and talking about why we draw, why we paint, it really relieves a lot of pressure on me and a lot of stress," Mrs Al Doulimi said.
"I think this place is helping me."
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Arts and mental health
According to Hammond Care workshop leader and artist Annette Innis, having art prescribed as an official therapy treatment for older patients was just being introduced in Australia.
"The idea that a doctor or a medical professional may officially suggest it to a patient really highlights it's something that is recommended and is a much easier way than more medication or different healthcare approaches," she said.
"The idea is that art and creativity is really good for older people. It has a lot of mental health benefits and general wellbeing benefits."
Pictures of the homeland
The artworks produced by the group have common themes — nature, farmland and family.
One participant painted his memory of a man on the street wearing a turban and pulling a cart of vegetables; another drew a beautifully coloured river bird catching fish.
For Mrs Al Doulimi, her next art piece will be of a family sitting around a table to share a meal.
"In Iraq, all the family — grandma, granddad, grandchildren, cousins — we come together at a big table and everyone eats and shouts," she said.
"We're missing this, we don't have this anymore."
Topics: refugees, mental-health, visual-art, anxiety, depression, community-and-society, sydney-2000