Encompass Summer Extravaganza!

The first all-encompassing summer event for our UK participants took place on the weekend of 22nd and 23rd August in London, with young people from previous Encompass programmes travelling from as far as Dundee, Glasgow, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and right here in London.

The theme of the day on Saturday was TOLERANCE expressed through the media of dance, drama and music. Amazing workshops headed up by some inspirational people gave the chance for the participants to try their hand at something completely new:

The music workshop, ‘Fear of the Unknown’, was headed up by Melanie Jane and MC Xander (AKA Rapucation) who supported the participants in thinking up their own lyrics which were then put to the beats, creating completely new music.

Drama facilitator Caroline got the participants thinking about race and diversity in their own communities, bringing in examples of recent cases of discrimination and using forum theatre to help the group to envisage what might have been if the characters in their sketches had acted differently.

As for dance, Delase Gazo, himself a participant on the Encompass ‘Diversity in the UK’ programme last year and Trainee Facilitator on the October 08 ‘Diversity in Scotland’ programme, gave the participants a real workout as they were led through a routine that would be performed by the entire group together at the end. Each small group also devised their own routine, using each of their strengths and weaknesses to come up with something truly unique.

The day finished up with some pretty amazing performances which demonstrated how much the participants had learnt in such a short space of time, and showed off their creative skills!

Beautiful sunny Sunday morning was spent playing rounders in Regent’s Park, which was led by Jason Budd, participant in the October 07 ‘Diversity in London’ programme and Trainee Facilitator on the July 09 North East programme. This was followed by a picnic lunch before getting down to some serious sight-seeing which took in Trafalgar Square, 10 Downing Street, Big Ben, Parliament Square and Buckingham Palace.

This was a great opportunity for participants from previous programmes to be reunited and to make new friends from other programmes, and we hope that this will be the first of many more events like this.

Click on photo below to see the Album;