EAST LONDON, ART WEEK 2011, FIELDGATE BIKES AND ARTSPOKES

An ongoing project in East London started in 2007 with friend Dolores Forcadell on our housing estate and the surrounding streets to have more activities for everyone, especially the children and young people, to make our environment a more pleasant place to be and to encourage exchange and understanding.

Now, in our fifth year, we are redefining and launching ourselves in December 2011 as a social enterprise.

More about what we do

Our area is classed as deprived and the young people in the 11-13 age group are especially vulnerable.  There isn’t any official Youth Service provision for this age group. 

We run art projects for young people aged 6 up. *   You can see some activities on the right.   People of all ages volunteer on the project.  Last year we made two 3 mins video documentaries with film maker Greg Hall – ‘Give us Back our Playground’ and ‘Dispersal Order’.

ART WEEK 2011 included mosaic, filmaking and our first  ever theatre performance on site with Kazzum Theatre.  Other activities that we organised were canoeing and archery for 9-16 year olds at the Urban Adventure Centre in Mile End Park

We were also awarded funding (June 2011) from CCFL (Community Cycling Fund for London) to encourage cycling.  FIELDGATE BIKES ran alongside ART WEEK 2011 with bike training, informal drop in bike maintenance workshops and bike graphics for young people.

To find out about the women’s bike project click here

* This project has mainly been funded by the Southern Housing Foundation.