As part of the carnival that opened the Mayor’s Newham Show weekend, Lynk Reach had a stall in the Get Involved Tent, in conjunction with the council’s Go for It grant. Alongside our stall, the Embracing Olympic Ideals DVD was showcased inside the tent and there was a performance from Unity, a dance group of young people with whom we often work on our arts, education and community projects.

top of page

On Wednesday 2nd July, at the National Archives, Lynk Reach presented a showcase of music, poetry, drama and dance, focusing on Panjabi experience of Partition and performed by young people from Newham secondary schools and community groups. The work was inspired by the oral histories of the Panjabi community, the rich historical resources held by The National Archives and Mazhar Tirmazi’s play, ‘A Lifetime on Tiptoes’, which gives this year-long Heritage-Lottery funded project its name.

Students from Lister Community School and Brampton Manor worked with poet Abe Gibson and the Newham-based dance groups Konspiracy and Unity (current World Hip Hop Champions) and dance and drama group Breaking Through to produce their pieces.

Community groups and individuals from East London were also involved. The evening culminated in the performance of a song from the play, ‘Langh Aaja Patan Chanah da Yaar’ (or ‘Come across the depths of the River Chanah my love’) and a group of Jago dancers, who encouraged the entire audience to join in towards the end of their piece.

top of page

On Sunday 29th June, a dinner was hosted by Fahro Malik and Jacob Sam-La Rose to celebrate another year's successful completion of the SLAM project and especially in honour of our guests from Chicago Peter Kahn (our senior SLAM judge and poet and teacher) and Christina Santana a young poet.

Also in attendance were the Lynk Reach team, Poet Coaches, Teacher Liaisons, shadow poets, alumni, volunteers and friends from this year's SLAM. It was great for everyone to get together and reflect on the project and enthusiasm was expressed by all about SLAM 2009.

top of page

The final of the sixth annual London Teenage Poetry SLAM took place at Stratford Circus. Students from seven schools across London (Lilian Baylis, Kingsford Community School, Lister Community School, Kidbrooke School, Holy Family Technology College, Hendon School and Lammas School), representing five London boroughs (Lambeth, Greenwich, Waltham Forest, Newham, Barnet), showcased their talents, alongside a special guest performer from Chicago—2007 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic champ Christina Santana—as well as the dance group Unity, who have recently been named World Hip Hop Champions.

The Lammas School in Waltham Forest was named this year’s Highest Scoring Team and will go on to represent the project in Chicago, performing and teaching in schools and a variety of other venues, including being the opening act for a sold-out performance of over 350 people. Kidbrooke School in Greenwich were awarded the trophy for ‘Most Striking Performance’, whilst the ‘Most Striking Line’ trophy was given to Hendon School, Barnet, with the judges singling out two lines: ‘Decomposing our love’ and ‘I steal your advice, remix it and sell it others as your own’.

top of page

This year marked the first Senior SLAM, an opportunity for SLAM alumni to showcase their talents. Taking place at the Roundhouse in Camden, and organised by Jacob Sam La Rose, SLAM's Artistic Director, and Louis Antwi, ex-SLAM contestant who runs the Process event at the Roundhouse, anyone who has taken part in a SLAM final was invited to perform individual pieces.

The prize for the Highest Scoring Student, Andre Francis-Angol was a guest slot at the SLAM final at Stratford Circus on the 28th June. In addition, he received a monetary prize and a Tony Finch Memorial Trophy, as did Jennifer Perry and Charles Yeboah, placed second and third respectively.

top of page

This event celebrated Brampton Manor School’s diverse community through food, music and dance from all over the world. Konspiracy also peformed a dance devised as part of the Heritage Lottery Funded ‘A Lifetime on Tiptoes’ project.

top of page

This year’s Community Building Day took place at Forest Gate Youth Zone on Saturday 29 March. Students gave up their Saturdays to take part in writing and performance master classes, with the day ending in an open-mic session at which the quality was stunningly high.

Two students were so enthusiastic they composed a poem in their lunch hour – the piece, entitled ‘Cancer’, brought tears to the eyes of many members of the audience. This event also provided an opportunity for informal consultation with our student poets about future poetry projects.

top of page

The Lynk Reach team came together over a three day period for development sessions, led by Naz and Tegwen Malik from AWEMA (the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association). These sessions allowed us to streamline and strengthen our procedures, learn new project management techniques and develop our team and board structure and the organisation’s key motivations, as well as design a new strapline. We shared our work with the Lynk Reach board on the final day and gained an enthusiastic response.

top of page

Lynk Reach presented work on the ‘Our Sporting Lives’ project at this seminar, taking place at West Ham United Football Club, that discussed harnessing 2012 as a motivational tool to raise attainment and achievement through out of school hours learning.

The project involved bespoke programmes for schools and community groups and aimed to chart the history of sports in the countries represented by Newham’s diverse communities and see how many of these evolved into Olympic sports, look at other sports and games played in the past, increase participation and interest of children, and their families from diverse communities in sports in Newham and increase knowledge of sports heritage within Newham's communities.

top of page

On the 29th January, members of Lynk Reach attended the Holocaust Memorial Day ‘Remembering, Reflecting, Reacting – The Holocaust and other Genocide’ at the London Muslim Centre. This marked the culmination of a cohesion project entitled ‘The Price of Prejudice’, aiming to build strong and positive relationships across racial, cultural and faith divides.

The seminar allowed young people to share their experiences, through journals, pictures and film clips, of their November trip to Auschwitz by an intergenerational group from Tower Hamlets, accompanied by Lynk Reach members and supported by the Jack Petchey Foundation.

top of page