🎉 A lot to celebrate this month and a lot to look forward to! 🎉 |
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👏 Congratulations Laura on the Honorary Doctorate 👏 |
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On Thursday 18th July 2024 we saw our Director, Laura Marziale receive a well-deserved recognition as an Honorary Doctor of the Arts from University of Greenwich for her contribution to public service in the Greenwich community. |
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Professor Tracey Reynolds spoke of Laura, 'a community activist and campaigner, harnesses the power of creative arts to champion social change in gender and racial equality, immigration reform and human rights. For the past two decades, Laura has immersed herself in various roles within local communities. She has been a campaigner for social justice, a community and development worker, a diversity, equity and inclusion trainer, and a teacher, trainer and facilitator in participatory action and co-production methods.' |
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Laura followed by thanking Tracey and saying, 'I feel very lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people, so many great allies and supporters who have believed in me and my work from the start. This award is a personal achievement of course but I share the joy with all the Stronger Together Leaders and all the women who are part of Creating Ground.' |
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The Creating Ground community were so happy to share this moment with Laura, feeling emotional, inspired and honoured to be part of Creating Ground. |
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🪴 Settling in at SET Woolwich 🪴 |
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Huge thanks to SET Woolwich for offering us this space where we are creating a new home together. Many of our members are contributing things from their homes to add to our shared space! We had a wonderful first session here with guest facilitator Vanio Papadelli guiding us through thinking about fitting and unfitting, creating connection and facing our vulnerability. |
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💪 Stronger Together Forum 💪 |
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We strongly believe not only in the power of creativity and arts for change, but also in the power of coming together across differences and perspectives to look at issues and find solutions together. We are Stronger Together and however small a step can seem, it can lead to a spiral of change. |
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On 12th July we had an amazing forum showcasing our issues within Temporary Accommodation in Greenwich through a powerful performance and discussing in small groups with different stakeholders from the council, NHS, primary schools, and local organisations. We hope this is just the beginning of a series of conversations leading to real change. Thanks to everyone who joined us and will be bringing more people to the next one! |
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🌟 Citizens UK General Election Assembly 🌟 |
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Very grateful to have been given the stage to open the Citizens UK General Election Assembly on 1st July with our #NoticeUs song, created thanks to funding from Trust for London, to an audience of over 2000 people. |
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And very proud of our Stronger Together Leader, Fatiha, for courageously addressing Angela Rayner at the assembly, advocating for much-needed changes in Temporary Accommodation across the UK. Fatiha's passion and commitment is truly inspiring, and it came through as she called for nationwide change. |
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🫧 H Is For Hostile Environment 🫧 |
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On 9th July we ran a workshop at UCL around Edwin Mingard and Keren Weitzberg's documentary film H Is For Hostile Environment. It was not easy to watch the film, seeing so many different stories that resonated with our experiences, but together we found a way to turn the H into H for Hope and we created bubbles of Hope inside baubles. The baubles we created will form part of an art exhibition for the launch of the film. Huge thanks to our DLR Community Ambassador, Jacqueline and to Groundwork's KeolisAmey Docklands Community Grant Funding for all their support. |
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🪑 South London Listens Taskforce Celebration 🪑 |
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Laura was delighted to co-chair the South London Listens Taskforce Celebration event on 9th July, attended by over 60 leaders. It was a space to celebrate our successful partnerships, reflect on how much we've achieved since the start of the pandemic, and get energised for what's to come. |
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😊 Reflections On Our Most Recent Projects 😊 |
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In partnership with Luca Silvestrini's Protein, and thanks to Brookhill Children's Centre for hosting, 20 migrant women from 10 different countries met for weekly dance sessions to devise a piece that we performed for Refugee Week and which formed an integral, emotive closure of our Stronger Together forum performance. We look forward to being back dancing together again in September. |
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Our Stronger Together group are taking a break over summer after achieving so much this year. Next steps will include planning for the next forum and training more migrant women as leaders! “I am personally most proud of how the wonderful women of Creating Ground have gradually and tirelessly worked it up from grass to grace." (Stronger Together Leader, July 2024) |
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Understanding Policy Making in partnership with UCL was a project for our Stronger Together Leaders to explore the history of migrant rights, thinking about how others like Sophia Streeting campaigned to change housing policy. We learned that as policymakers, our language and creative methods are sometimes different to those in power. We created an exhibition showing that as creative policymakers, we are already doing the work, and we are part of a historic movement to improve our human rights. |
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Creatively Together, a creative project that included day trips using the DLR, thanks to Groundwork's KeolisAmey Docklands Community Grant Funding, was attended by 20 migrant women from 11 different countries. “I like everything about the project. I love the strong foundation, all respectful, loving, caring, supporting team, sharing thoughts and ideas, the trips, safe environment and arts where we can express our feelings without saying anything with words.” (Creatively Together project member, July 2024) |
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Our Theatre in Action project with the Stronger Together Leaders has been a huge success. The group have devised something truly unique, that gets the issues across with elements of joy and humour. We've already been asked to record the performance professionally as a training tool, and we can't wait to meet again to take our theatre work further, embracing cross-sector and cross-cultural audiences! |
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🌸 What We've Got Coming Up 🌸 |
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Starting in September, we'll be running the projects below. Please refer any migrant women who might benefit from attending any of our projects by emailing Laura at info@theground.org.uk |
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Please reply to this email if you would like any further information about the projects! |
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✨ Are you a migrant woman looking to improve your leadership skills? ✨ |
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Join our Community Action and Leadership course in September! It will take place over 2 days, in-person, and will be run by our Stronger Together Leaders. 📅 Wednesday 11th and Wednesday 18th September 2024 ⏰ 10am - 1:00pm 📍 SET Woolwich, Beresford Street, London SE18 6BU To register or find out more email Laura at info@theground.org.uk |
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🦋 Follow us on social media 🦋 |
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