The Bridge Project
Overview
Before the lockdown, This New Ground Collective was meeting for weekly creative activities at our local community centre. Since the centre has been closed to the public we have been connecting remotely for social activities and creative workshops. These sessions have been hosted by TNG facilitator’s, Nathalie Carrington, Lucy Groenewoud and community musician Sam Dook.
The sudden change of circumstances brought up a set of challenges we had to overcome. Many of our participants did not have access to digital devices at home and had never used a computer or iPad to speak to people before. We as facilitators were working in new territory. We needed to research and develop the best inclusive practices for running digital remote activities. At the same time, we knew we had to be agile and responsive to our participants, many of whom had become isolated without pathways to their community or opportunities for engagement.
Since March 2020, we have delivered:
14 art packs to local people with a learning disability
11 iPads accompanied by accessible guides
75 hours of group workshops
35 hours of personalised sessions
18 hours of weekly community socials for our disabled community
15 art activity sheets for participants and the wider community to do at home
11 individually designed face masks by our participants
A growing portfolio of community art work
A playlist of original music co-created by artists with a learning disability
A music video co-produced by our participants during lockdown
An online and physical exhibition at Bush Theatre of participant’s original artwork
We saw that the lockdown was not only an emergency, but an opportunity to accelerate and explore new ways of promoting the inclusion of people with a learning disability in the digital world we are all building. As part of our research findings we have collated some of our learnings and created some sharable resource to help inform and inspire inclusive initiatives like ours.
