One of the greatest things I do within this role is to make connections with organisations that have a youth element attached to their work. For example Connexions, East Potential, and various festivals and Carnival organisations. My creative spark has put to good use by Keith Khan, Artist Executive at London 2012. Working with Keith has been a great use of my skills especially filming the local communities of the five East London boroughs.
During this time I have found many organisations and groups who are really enthusiastic about the games and as an organisation London 2012's message on the games is actually reaching many more people than I realised when I first started. That isn't saying that we haven't a lot more work to do over the next four years and beyond. But we have made a great start.
One of my most memorable experiences so far has been a visit I made on behalf of the London 2012 Education team to Fulham Primary School. After a project that spanned 1.5 years, the school with partners Creative Partnerships London West and Kinetika were holding a fabulous carnival event to celebrate and explore the diverse mix of cultures and identities at the school.
The children had worked hard with Kinetika storyteller Naomi to develop a story for their 'ImagiNation' carnival that reflected who they were and what their hopes and dreams were for their community. Together with their teachers and Kinetika, they made costumes and carnival props that drew all the elements of their story together. The school had also been inspired to deliver the carnival themes through the curriculum and to use carnival skills to support creative learning aims.
The 'ImagiNation' carnival itself, on Thursday 19 June 2008, was a wonderful vision of colour with a performance in the school playground that culminated in a parade through the neighbouring streets. The event was a great success with over 300 children, 50 school staff and a large audience taking part. People even came out of their houses to watch and enjoy the procession go past. The school hopes to continue this as a yearly event over the next 4 years building in the hopes and dreams of new and younger generations of students.
Inspired by the tremendous efforts of Fulham Primary School's students, I decided to return to the school to find out what they thought about their carnival. I was also keen to capture some of their ideas and dreams for the London 2012 Olympic Games. I chose to do this through the medium of dance and with the help of dance practitioner Sharon Young. Together we explored what carnival represented to the students through shapes and sounds. Stars, circles, waving, drumming sounds, shaking and bells all featured.
We also asked the students to think about what they might expect from future carnivals. They came up with a variety of interesting and entertaining ideas from fire-eaters, big puppets, bright and colourful costumes, lots of glitter, nice food and visiting celebrities (including Boris Johnson) to their own carnival touring around the beach and the Olympic Stadium. For them the Olympic and Paralympic Games are a long way off, however they did have some suggestions about what sports they might want to see at London 2012: Judo, Wrestling, the Long and Triple jumps, lots of field events, Rowing, Athletics, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, Archery, Football, sumo wrestling and surprisingly ninjas!
