African Diaspora Foundation ‘Summer Camp’ – in partnership with The Wisdom Principle

01 October 2024


Image: Young people and their parents/guardians enjoying the creative workshop.

In Netherfield, there are school holiday ‘camps’ offered to all children but many children of minority ethnic backgrounds who are eligible to attend do not make use of the service due to a range of cultural and economic barriers.

Our project in partnership with The Wisdom Principle provided school-age children from diverse communities with culturally adapted creative activities with the aim of increasing attendance at a ‘camp’ run by African Diaspora Foundation for predominantly black African and Caribbean families. The emphasis was on promoting mental wellbeing, encouraging community cohesion, and intergenerational creative ‘play’.

We were delighted to welcome back artist Amanda Holiday who recently worked with Arts for Health MK on last year’s ‘Creatively Minded, Ethnically Diverse’ project.

Artist Amanda Holiday said of the session “The children clearly enjoyed the activity and felt it was imaginative and freeing. They became engrossed in the communal making and gluing”. Amanda introduced the theme of ‘Hidden Figures’ and asked the children who were the hidden or background figures in their lives – suggestions ranged from grandparents through to relatives who lived abroad, and incidental acquaintances in school settings. Children felt comfortable to talk about hidden figures who had made both a positive and negative impression on them. The children were also introduced to the work by African American artist Kara Walker, and were showed examples of African alphabets, syllabaries and ‘Adinkra symbols’ from Ghana which are symbols or patterns that have the form of a silhouette.

We look forward to being able to provide further sessions for the community next year and are grateful to MK Community Foundation for funding this work.

In partnership with:





 

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