We’re crowdfunding to establish a sustainable, permanent, place to deliver our intergenerational creative education and skills training, media and art programmes for disadvantaged young people/adults in Church Street.
Our projects foster collaborative, cultural exchange between creative practitioners and disadvantaged youth/adults. By doing so, we build self-confidence, tackle trauma, feelings of isolation and loneliness, provide pathways to further education and increase employability.
Situated in the heart of Church Street, STEPS ideally located in the community we work with and provide opportunities to run a range of community driven projects as well as our core programmes. STEPS will consist of fully equipped fashion design studio including classrooms, multi-purpose art/craft room as well as an office/cafe and project/exhibition space. By pledging to our campaign, you’ll also become part of our vision and we invite all donors to visit our space to see the impact of our project.
What we'll deliver:
- • Decorate rooms
- • Install Creative art/craft equipment
- • Deliver regular fashion/creative arts/craft projects for young and adults
- • Furnish lounge/cafe space
- • Add signage to front of building
- • Organise regular public events for our community
- • Ensure there is safe and secure access to the building
- • Ensure that we reduce, reuse and recycle as part of our environmental commitment
Why it's a great idea:
WEPT identifies and manages environmental risks by purchasing locally produced fabrics and where possible sustainable materials and donating fabric cut-offs/remnants to charities for patchwork stitching training in the community. Directly from Church Street, we recycle the small vegetable crates which we use for storage and shelving as they are stackable. WEPT also has an idea to establish a community compost scheme to recycle all the fruit and veg left by market traders.
Church Street Market is the heart of the community has been a world-renowned vibrant eclectic fashion, art and craft and food market.
Unfortunately, Church Street is still one of the most deprived areas in Westminster. Youth unemployment and crime rates and anti-social behaviour are high and civic pride remains negatively affected, confirmed in the tri-borough Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) Report 2015.
Steps to get it done:
- • Basic Refurbishment/decorating
- • Fit-out classrooms, fashion and creative art, craft Studios and Cafe lounge
- • Deliver first adornment training and creative craft project event
- • Lunch event showcasing work from our projects including fashion show and creative craft/art exhibition
Our mission is to bring these two worlds together through creative skills training/education.
Working in partnership with schools, youth centres, universities, colleges fashion companies and local creatives to deliver high quality creative programmes for young/old people who experience hardship or cannot access education or employment to become the Creative of West London
It is a great idea because it:
• Provides creative education and training for disadvantaged youth/adults
• Brings together all groups in our community
• Brings an empty building in to community use-fosters a culture of collaboration between artists and young people/adults
Provide more cafe and creative spaces where people can meet culturally and socially. We'll be supporting existing jobs as well as creating new micro-business through our programme offering our graduates, pathways into further education/training, employment and 3 months business support into self-employment in the community.
