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BAC Playkits

BAC Playkits: Giving the Gift of Creativity This Christmas

BAC Playkits: Giving the Gift of Creativity This Christmas

Battersea Arts Centre and a host of local charities and organisations are spreading the festive cheer this year with the gift of creativity

Keen to spread the festive cheer this year, Battersea Arts Centre has announced the roll out of their Create & Learn Playkits once again, following a successful crowdfunding initiative and implementation over this year’s summer holidays.

From December 14, 3,000 children between the ages of 6 and 10 across the borough are set to receive the kits – with the focus on those children that otherwise may have limited access to creative resources over the holiday season.

This winter initiative follows on from the hugely successful roll-out of playkits between June and September, when 3,900 kits were sent out across Wandsworth and Roehampton as a result of local councils identifying the limited access many local children had to creative resources during the first peak of the Coronavirus crisis.

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Local artists, organisations and Royal College of Art graduates were commissioned to design the creative resources which include craft materials, a booklet of 14 creative activities and a newsletter, signposting families to other arts activities online. Where schools and children already had access to the necessary creative resources to complete activities, the booklet has been made available to access in print and digital forms – ensuring all local families keen to get involved are able to do so.

One activity is inspired by the theme of celebrating sharing and light and suggests how to design your own messages to loved ones and fold them into your own home made festive lanterns – a particularly poignant message during continually uncertain times. The activity was designed in collaboration with Agora Arts Circle, Origami expert Dr Lizzie Burns, and 575 Wandsworth Road; a National Trust site once owned by Khadambi Asalache where almost every surface has been transformed into wooden carvings and paintings. For over 20 years he filled the house with memories of his travels and messages to loved ones, and illuminated everything with lanterns and candles.

The project brings together Agora Arts Circle, Battersea Arts Centre, Love To Learn, Nine Elms Arts Ministry, Roehampton R.O.C.K.S, Royal College of Art, Creative Wandsworth, SenTalk, Tara Arts, 575 Wandsworth Road (National Trust) and Wandsworth Council as well as dedicated group of volunteers, enabling the partnership to pool existing funding and donated resources.

More information on the scheme is available here.