News – Page 5

Hearing Lydia’s story

On Thursday, 4 November, Lydia Lawrence movingly shared her story as a survivor of knife crime, as well as talking about her work as an anti knife crime campaigner and her involvement in The Narrative Empowerment Project. See her story on our highlights page.

Meeting JCT

On Thursday 7 October, we heard about their work, and the passion that inspires it, from members of JCT (Just Come Together). Read on to see more, or visit our highlights page to see them talk bout their work.

RTK future plans

At our last RTK we introduced our new expanded team and adjusted to combining meeting in person with others coming via Zoom. Read on to hear a little of our plans, or see the video on our highlights page to hear Rosie talk about them..

Summer activities

We mentioned a range of summer activities for children and young people at our last RTK on Zoom. See links in this post for some details of activities in Wandsworth and Croydon.

Big Belly Kitchen and the close of art exhibition in Southside

At our last evening on Zoom we welcomed Shaq and Keiron from Big Belly Kitchen and shared reactions about the art installation in Southside (which has since come to the end of its exhibiting period).

Come to Southside Shopping Centre to see our exhibition!

You are invited to Southside Shopping Centre, Wandsworth town centre, to see our exhibition – in the unit between Poundland and Accessorize – of our art project created by Francis Barber students, under the direction of artist, Eugene Ankomah. Last day to view is Friday, 2 July.

Wake – Up

At our last RTK evening, we met Nathalie Pownall, part of Penificent and a mentor in a young offenders institution. She told us about a short film she had worked on – created by some of those she mentors. It has been released on Amazon Prime today!

Penificent and Eugene Ankomah

On Thursday 6 May we heard about two fantastic creative projects. One was by the Penificent team, who use comics and digital art to address knife crime, and the other a visual artist, Eugene Ankomah, who uses a wide range of artistic media to highlight the issue.

As usual we began by remembering knife crime victims, and their families, and particularly Quamari Barnes, close to what would have been his 20th birthday.

Penificent explained their vision and passion: to provide comics which are relevant, relatable, powerful and inspiring. They bring positive messages to young people by engaging them in stories, and enable them to express, understand and bring their own responses and perspective to contemporary issues. They have a range of comics addressing knife crime and mental health issues and take workshops, and their comics, into schools to share with children in years 5 through to 9. We’re grateful to Anthony and Darren, and Nathalie and Lydia who spoke eloquently about reaching young people with their important message.

Eugene Ankomah, in just one aspect of his work as a visual artist, creates art installations by working with groups of young people to make an immersive artwork that, through all kinds of creativity, voices the feelings and experiences of young people in response to knife crime. In June, working with RTK, Eugene will bring this fantastic project to Francis Barber’s Wandsworth site. We are hugely looking forward to working with the students across all the year groups.

RTK highlights

We have added a new page to the website, to give a quick way to get a flavour of what RTK is about.

WAW Awards

Last Monday evening Val and Rosie each received an honorary WAW award, in recognition of their work with RTK. RTK’s work has given space for families to share their stories of loss, and offered support as these resilient parents and siblings work to bring change within our communities. We are so pleased that RTK’s work as been highlighted through these awards.