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| John Watts, at the Young Vic |
By Mat Amp
Raging Calm’s second 'Flight' 'workshop as part of the Scorched Earth project, unearthed raw personal and inspiring stories, at the St Mungo's Recovery College, on Sept 9th.
Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts
The Pavement celebrates its tenth anniversary
The Pavement Magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary on 11 September with a star-studded comedy night at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington.
The event was a real blast and featured renowned comedians Stewart Lee and Robin Ince, whose performances highlighted the support the small-format magazine has gathered during its first decade in print.
The Pavement Magazine is a homeless publication founded in 2004 and designed to fill a vacuum by producing content featuring essential practical information alongside hard-hitting and entertaining reportage primarily aimed at and tailored to a homeless readership. In the past ten years the Pavement has gradually established itself as not just a useful magazine but an entertaining publication with the magazine’s Word on the Street programme encouraging contributions from homeless writers.
Karin Goodwin, the magazine’s editor says “The founder, Richard Burdett, saw a real need for a publication that put information straight into the hands of those who needed it most; homeless people themselves….We believe that our readers themselves are the experts on homelessness”.
The night was not just about celebrating The Pavement’s anniversary. It also aimed to raise awareness of the charity, boost the magazine’s profile and generate desperately needed funds.
Ince's strong support for the cause is the only reason for his performance, coming as it did six months into a five year sabbatical from the stand-up circuit. Indeed, all the performers talked about the need to support the Pavement with a genuine passion that fuelled the joyful and positive atmosphere of the celebration in the theatre on the night. Sandwiched between the two featured comedians were strong performances from the comedy duo Read-Wilson and Hughes Hughes and the singer Barb Jung whose distinctive voice has lost none of its soulful power.
Robin Ince rocked the house with the stand-out performance on the night. His wickedly clever style of of jumping from one story to another was delivered at brisk pace, developing themes that eventually found their way back home, all the while stabbing logic in the face with a dagger of razor sharp reason.
In contrast Stewart Lee’s act, delivered at slow pace, was all about deconstructing the art form of stand up comedy. Throughout his career he has chosen to tread his own path, pushing the boundaries set by the mainstream in order to continually develop his own routine.
The same could be said of The Pavement’s journey over the past ten years. In Karin’s words "The night itself was a great mix; there was caustic wit, warmth and laughter, political agitation and generally an outpouring of support and goodwill for The Pavement and all it stands for”. She adds "Not only does the money raised help us to keep printing copies of The Pavement, which are in constantly high demand; it also encourages us to keep working harder to make sure The Pavement goes from strength-to-strength."
All in all the night was a worthy celebration of the ten years in which the Pavement has struggled on a shoestring to establish itself as a publication that genuinely helps those on the street. Laughter maybe the best medicine for life but for some of the disenfranchised on the street there is no better tonic than The Pavement Magazine. To find out more, visit the Pavement Magazine website.
Comedy night marks ten years down the Pavement
By Yousif Farah
Pavement Magazine is celebrating its 10th
birthday on Friday 11 September, a milestone that will be marked with a high-profile
comedy fundraiser featuring the exceptionally hilarious Stewart Lee.
The event will be held at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington’s North
Street, off Caledonian Road, and the all-star line-up will also include Robin
Ince, winner of the Time Out Award for Outstanding Achievement in comedy and music from Barb Jungr whose album of Bob Dylan covers was once described by the Wall Street Journal
as “the most significant vocal album of the 21st century”.
Also joining them will be Tom Read Wilson and Gary Albert Hughes who are both known for performing satirical and political songs.
Also joining them will be Tom Read Wilson and Gary Albert Hughes who are both known for performing satirical and political songs.
The Pavement hopes the event will raise much-needed funds
to help them further pursue helping homeless people through their unique publication.
Its sole purpose is to support people at times of crisis,
aiming to make life that bit easier for homeless people through providing them
with information that can both help reduce short-term hardship, as well as
enable them to guide their own lives.
The publication is pocket-sized, concise, providing homeless
readers with news from the streets relative to their situation and often
neglected by the mainstream press. Alongside the news stories they run monthly updated lists of day centres, soup kitchens and places to gather advice
and assistance regarding housing. It also has features on health, legal
advice and an insider’s view of life in hostels.
The publication relies entirely on donations from the
public and volunteers. However, these volunteers are highly skilled writers and
cartoonists, some of whom work for reputable media outlets such as Private Eye.
At Poached Creative we work closely with the Pavement
magazine. Some of our own Big Issue online
journalism trainees have contributed articles to The Pavement. We also
recently ran a four week media training course for budding contributors.
Furthermore, the writing panel meetings are held at our
premises and are attended by our writing mentor Grant and I.
Grant says: “The listing section is a revelation especially when you
first find yourself in that situation.
The proceeds of the forthcoming event will help more homeless people through their ordeal.
For tickets, bookings and information on how to get to the
venue visit The Pleasance Theatre website.
To donate visit The Pavement website.
March For Homes on 31 January
by Yousef Farah
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| March For Homes |
Londoners will march on City Hall on 31 January 2015 to express their
anguish and frustration with the ongoing housing crisis in the capital.
The marchers are expected to voice their demands to the Mayor,
including:
- the need for tougher
regulations to control spiralling rent prices which have been increasing
by 13% per annum since 2010
- also the building of new
affordable council houses rather than demolishing the ones which already
exist to replace them with expensive private developments
- rent cuts as opposed to
benefit cuts
- the need for decent pay and
conditions for housing and care workers as well as calling for the
abolition of the controversial bedroom tax.
Defend Council Housing, the South London People’s Assembly and Unite
Housing Workers are behind the march.
Glyn Robbins of Defend Council Housing wrote in the Morning Star on 10 January:
“Nothing affects people’s daily lives more than housing. It’s hard to
have a decent life without a decent home. But there is a chasm between the
level of public concern and the ability, or willingness, of our political
system to solve the housing crisis.”
At Poached Creative, we support the aims of the March for Homes.
Many of our trainees and staff have been affected by the housing crisis and we
recognise the urgent need for a solution.
Lately our colleague John Watts participated and reported on a similar march, in
solidarity with 93 families from the New Era Estate in Hoxton. They were
battling against eviction by $11bn US investor Westbrook Partners.
Fortunately, months of protests and campaigns paid off. The new
owner was announced as Dolphin Living part of the Dolphin Square
Foundation, a charity dedicated to providing affordable homes for
low and middle income Londoners.
The campaign received high level of publicity and was an eye opener to
the public who are starting to realise that unless a permanent solution is
found to our fragile and vulnerable housing state of affairs, the problem will
continue and expand. Ultimately it is us and future generations who will suffer
the consequences of unaffordable housing.
To find out more about the march visit the march official
webpage.
Homeslessness organisations get a boost from Poached
by Yousif Farah
It’s been a busy year for Poached in 2014, not least because we’ve been
able to work with a number of homelessness organisations through our
collaborative projects.
Our latest collaboration will see us join forces with the Pavement magazine. The Pavement was founded in
2005 as a registered charity in response to the increasing need of a
publication focused on homelessness and directed at those affected by it.
The magazine is concise and informative. It could be described as
a rough sleeper’s A to Z, providing the reader with a list of day centres, soup
kitchens and places to gather advice and assistance regarding housing. It
also has features on health, legal advice and an insider’s view of life in
hostels. It also covers the journalistic aspects of homelessness through
comprehensive coverage of the news from the streets, often dealing
with topics neglected by the mainstream press.
Even though the publication relies on volunteers,
they are highly trained and experienced journalists and homeless sector
professionals, also among the volunteers are some of the country’s best
cartoonists (many of them Private Eye contributors). Some of
our own Big Issue online journalism trainees have contributed articles to The
Pavement in recent months.
The Pavement is well established in London,
Scotland and the West Midlands, with over 4,000 copies distributed to over 70
hostels, day centres, homeless surgeries, soup-runs and libraries in London
alone.
Its sole purpose is to support people at times of
crisis, aiming to make life that bit easier for homeless people through
providing them with information that can both help reduce short-term hardship,
as well as enable them to guide their own future. The Pavement relies entirely
on donations by public, to donate or read more visit The Pavement.
As well as working with the Pavement, we got a
welcome and rather unusual offer of support from the world of music.
When blues artists Mete Ege got in touch with Poached offering to
donate the proceeds of his new single Ghosts
of London to support our Big Issue
online journalism training
programme, we were thrilled to accept this unexpected yet generous offer! The
song draws from Mete’s own experience of sleeping rough in the capital: “Knowing that the money from the sales will be used to
train homeless people feels right. Everyone deserves a chance to break the
vicious cycle.”
Finally, in October, we helped to promote a comedy gig to raise
funds for the Hackney Winter Night Shelter, which provides
rough sleepers in the borough with a bed for the night, a hot meal and a warm
smile. Headlined by Stewart Lee and compered by Daniel Kitson, A Belter
for the Shelter was a huge success and our writer Martin was there to review it.
Inspiring libraries of today and tomorrow
By Catriona Kinney
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| Photo by Twechy |
There’s a forest growing in Norway. But this is not just any
forest – its trees will become the pages of a Future Library: a special anthology of books to be printed in
one hundred years from now. One writer a year will contribute a text – starting
with Margaret Atwood - which will be secured and unpublished until 2114.
As a big fan of both libraries and Margaret Atwood these facts fill me with joy, but also despair that I will never get my hands on these great secret books (unless I’m alive and kicking at age 127!).
It might seem strange that Margaret Atwood’s book will already be a century out of date when it is published, and some have questioned whether the language change in that time will make it difficult to read. However many of the nations’ most-loved books have stood the test of time, like A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, published in 1843, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, published in 1813.
Pride and Prejudice and other books can be found in another new
innovative library announced last month –and accessible to non-time travellers -
Recovery College Library in Southwark, South London.
The library was opened for International Literacy Day by St.Mungo’s Broadway, a homeless charity, as part of their Reading Matters campaign.
The campaign aims to improve homeless people's poor level of basic reading,
writing and maths skills, as the charity found that 51% of homeless people they surveyed lack the basic literacy skills needed for everyday life.
Supporters
of the campaign were asked to nominate which books meant the most to them, and
the library is formed of over 100 of these nominations.
The
best-loved books included The Lord of the Rings by J. R, R. Tolkien, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Nineteen
Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four was nominated by supporter Jack Davies because it's "a brilliantly detailed satire of our lives today, yet
written some 65 years ago. More poignant today than any piece of literature or
comment written now."
This goes to show that even books written long ago still
have the power to inspire the hearts and minds of people today and in the
future.
Here’s hoping that when the future library opens a hundred years’
time, everyone will have a roof over their head and the literacy skills to read
the books.
Poached Creative
provides journalism training to homeless and other disadvantaged people.
Tackling homelessness through ETE
Research has shown that over a third of people who use
homeless services don’t have the formal qualifications they need to find
employment or to participate in and enjoy full and active lives. Numerous reports have highlighted the need
for coordinated and specialist education, training and employment support for
homeless people.
Housing support services have long recognised that housing
in itself will not provide a complete answer to the risks and consequences of homelessness.
There is a general consensus that the
availability of specialist education, training and employment (ETE) services has improved
over the last ten years and have played a key role at local level, usually
being seen as flexible and supportive by other agencies and people.
Homeless people often experience significant barriers in engaging
formal education; the advantages are clear and include greater social
integration, confidence and self-esteem. This would give a boost to homeless
people who have a strong academic background but need to update their
qualifications or to re-familiarise with them. Successive governments have also
taken the view that paid work is beneficial in a number of ways; it provides a
route out of poverty and it can address the sense of purposelessness, lack of
direction and poor self-image that may be present among people who have not
worked for sustained periods.
However, many studies have emphasised the need to tackle the
problems and barriers single homeless people face in securing training and
employment. Some of these problems and barriers include low education
attainment, little or no work experience which puts homeless people at a
disadvantage, problematic drug use and poor physical and mental health which renders
them unemployable.
There are also homeless people that have a history of
employment, have qualifications and can perhaps with help, make a move back
into paid work relatively simply. In some cases they have complex needs and
need a great deal of support before the transition to seeking paid work is a
viable option. This means that there are unmet support needs, low levels of
self assurance, a lack of interpersonal skills and also an inability to
structure their time means they cannot immediately use mainstream services
designed to help with job seeking, let alone secure paid work for themselves.
Research carried out by St Mungo’s Broadway suggests that people
in this group may benefit from activities that allow them to develop
interpersonal skills; emotional literacy, assertiveness and self-esteem, as
well from programmes designed to deliver meaningful activity or ‘sheltered’
forms of employment prior to acquiring more formal qualifications.
From experience, front-line housing support workers have frequently
voiced concerns that recent legislative changes have failed to recognise
adequately the vulnerability of young homeless people and that individuals with
particularly traumatic histories were at risk of being pushed out into
mainstream programmes before they were ready.
That put aside, there is clear evidence that education,
training and employment (ETE) services are beneficial to homeless people. The
ETE sector has grown very significantly over the years and is characterised by
innovation, diversification and experimentation with many different forms of
service being developed.
Poached Creative has been working
with The Big Issue to provide practical training in communications and
journalism for people who are homeless and long-term unemployed or facing
significant barriers to employment. The training has been really successful and
has seen some of the trainees regain confidence to pursue recognised journalism
qualifications, write articles for print media such as The Pavement, The Telegraph, and E9 magazine. Some have found work as photographers.
There is a very strong need for coordinated and specialist
education for training and employment support for homeless people by service
providers. This is imperative as resources might be subject to constraint in
future. There is a need for caution, in that it is logical to expect that wider
labour market conditions will have an effect on ETE effectiveness. Realism is needed when considering the scale
of barriers that a minority of homeless people face in relation to securing
paid work. With appropriate ETE and support paid work can be secured, it can
help a person overcome the material and psychological effects of being
homeless.
Steering toward a better life
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| John at Pirates Castle |
John Watts shares how social
enterprises and charities working together has made a positive difference
in his life.
The motto of the Pirates Castle - 'activities boating community' pretty much sums up what this charity is all about. I started volunteering
there a while back and quickly became aware of the importance social enterprises
and charities have in working together. So, for my first blog for Poached Creative, let me take you on a little voyage…
Situated in the heart of Camden, the Pirates have been going
since 1966. Starting out with just a few kids messing about in boats along the
Regents Canal, it has grown into a local landmark offering everything from
kayaking to canal trips, youth clubs to dog yoga.
Living around the corner in Arlington House, a homeless hostel,
I was invited by homelessness charity St. Mungo's Broadway to attend a weekly training scheme
at the Pirates Castle.
Through the Pirates, I also worked with Access Adventure, a
government scheme for helping disabled youngsters into outdoor activities such
as rock climbing, cycling, and orienteering. They aided me to get my
disability sports trainer and paediatric paramedic certificates through their collaboration
with Disability in Camden and the Westway organisation.
Later, Broadway steered me towards the Poached Creative BigIssue Online Journalist training programme, after I did some English
tutoring with Somalian residents in Arlington House through One Housing Group’s
support wing.
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| John interviews now>press>play Photo by Declan Slattery |
Through this training I got to meet and interview representatives
of numerous charities and social enterprises like now>press>play’ who provide interactive teaching for kids, and Hackney Laces, a young
women’s football team. The training stressed their important role in the local community and our duty as journalists to
report this.
Meanwhile I had got involved in the Two Boroughs’ theatrical
project the Sound of Yellow for the homeless and disadvantaged at the Young Vic,
because I had been attending Cardboard Citizens drama sessions at Crisis Education.
I think it is because of this experience with other charities
and social enterprises, and the collaboration and networking of these organisations
in offering me these opportunities, that I am now writing this blog for Poached
Creative. It has been the hard work and dedication of these organisations that
has taken me on this adventurous voyage over the last two years.
Volunteering has driven away that awful despondency coupled
with a feeling of helplessness that comes from suffering homelessness. The
irony is that by being helpful to others has been empowering in helping myself
to recover a degree of self worth and as a value to my community.
On the horizon the future looks bright. I will continue my
volunteering with the Pirate Castle, attend a series of workshops with Two
Boroughs with the aim of doing a Christmas show, and will be involved
with St Mungo’s Broadway Recovery College’s drama and film ‘skool’ courses.
So, ‘Ahoy shipmates!’ climb aboard and get involved in your
local charities and social enterprises, you never know what ports of call you
might end up making.
Volunteering, free labour or a lifeline?
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| Picture by: Anil Parmer, Poached Creative's fifth birthday party |
I would not be exaggerating if I say that volunteering is
transforming my life by the minute.
Looking back at my life one year ago, I was in turmoil; depressed,
experiencing all sorts of family conflicts, having to drop out of University, losing
my flat, being imprisoned twice in the space of one year. My life was a
mortifying chapter from a horror book. I was in an utter state of despair; I
woke up every day thinking the End of the world is past noon. I would never
have envisaged digging myself out of that hole.
However, I was very fortunate to learn about Poached
Creative through The Big Issue on line journalism course. A course provided by
Poached Creative in conjunction with the Big Issue; at the time I lacked the
drive, and the motivation to start something new. I missed two initial
induction interviews. And when I thought
that I messed it up for myself. The managing director of Poached Creative
Jessica Smith contacted me again, and we scheduled another interview which this
time I attended. I am ever indebted to her patience.
I then attended the six week Journalism course, which was a
turning point in my life. Not only did I acquire new skills. The
whole experience profoundly impacted the way I perceived my future, it
instilled a sense of optimism and hope towards the future, which incentivised
me to work harder and improve myself. The depression and helplessness I was
feeling began to fade away by the week.
I successfully completed the course and progressed to a
volunteering role within Poached Creative, which is a design and writing social enterprise.
Having something to wake up to makes all the difference, it
drives you to work harder and open your eyes to opportunities you would
otherwise have missed. It enriches your experience and boosts your morale.
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