The Walworth Festival
Faraday Gardens, London, SE17
1 July 2006
STAR RATING: 5/5
Taking place in the heart of the Aylesbury Estate, south London, and organised on a shoestring by the InSpire community centre in partnership with other local voluntary and community groups, there was no ignoring this event, writes Mark Drinkwater.
As I approached Faraday Gardens the music was reverberating off the Aylesbury’s Soviet-looking concrete housing. The estate is one of the largest in Europe, and the neighbourhood is one of the country’s more deprived, with high levels of crime, unemployment, educational underachievement and teenage pregnancy.
Onstage came a succession of musicians and dancers, showcasing local talent. The main attraction was H20 dance crew who whipped up the crowd in a stunning display of street dance and told accessible, humorous stories through body popping and gravity-defying spins and somersaults.
My favourite performers were the dance troupe the MIA Dancers (Moving Into Age). Their average age is 70 and they’re the sprightliest septuagenarians I know, dancing to tracks by Barry Manilow and Rachel Stevens. It was a joy to watch them giving the former S-Club singer a run for her money as they danced to her hit My LA Ex.
There’s a large black community in the Aylesbury estate, and since Trinidad & Tobago and Ghana had been knocked out of the World Cup, it was great to see so many from the estate at the festival sporting England shirts on the day that team would suffer the same fate.
Every neighbourhood needs a chance to come together like this.
Mark Drinkwater is a community worker in Southwark, south London
Festival review: The Walworth Festival
July 20, 2006 in Adults, Children, Young people
More from Community Care
Related articles:
Featured jobs
Workforce Insights
- Extending support: the importance of reflective supervision beyond the ASYE
- ‘It’s hopeful work’: social work in an adults’ mental health team
- Podcast: supporting adults with learning disabilities and autism post-pandemic
- ‘There aren’t many roles where you get to take a child on holiday’: the benefits of residential care work
- Podcast: the benefits of a relational approach to social work
- ’Families feel heard’: the impact of a systemic approach on social work practice
- Workforce Insights – showcasing a selection of the sector’s top recruiters
Community Care Inform
Latest stories
‘Massive’ cut in care population is key success measure for DfE reforms, says chief social worker
Regulator urges TV industry to ‘change the script’ on how it depicts social work
Minority ethnic social care staff face disproportionately high levels of bullying and disciplinaries – study
Non-statutory placements make up over half of provision for students in Scotland, report reveals
Comments are closed.