On the 6th and 7th July, The Met proudly hosted our first in person schools event since the COVID pandemic as we welcomed over 90 students from Philips High School in Whitefield to our ‘Too Great for Hate’ event.
This event was a partnership with member organisations from our Creative Case for Diversity steering group that has been meeting since Autumn 2020 to develop projects focused on the role of arts and culture in supporting diversity in Bury. Kindly funded by Bury Council through the Hate Crime Awareness fund and part of a year-long programme which will conclude in Autumn, the event brought together Communic8te, Bury Blind Society and Bury Asian Women’s Centre to deliver activities for young people.
The activities delivered across the two days included teaching the students finger spelling and basic British Sign Language with the help of Communic8te’s Sign to Song Choir. At the end of each session, all the students came together to perform a rousing signed version of ‘A Million Voices’ by Tusse.
Bury Blind Society shared activities and stories from members that demonstrated the different types of sight loss and the conditions that can lead to it. They showed the students examples of the kinds of tools that can be used to support visually impaired people and talked about the history of Braille, even showing the students a Braille machine, which was impressively demonstrated by Sid.
Ayesha from Bury Asian Women’s Centre gave the students the chance to practice their precision using henna and creating patterns both traditional and freestyle. Not only did the students get to showcase their creative flair but they also experienced the calming and mindful benefits of such detailed artwork.
The ethos behind this event was not just to enable the students to learn from their activities, but also talk, ask questions and gain greater understanding of the lives and experiences of those who were leading the workshops through conversation. We hope that this group of students take their learning back to school and work to make their school community even more inclusive and cohesive as a result.
We’d like to thank everyone from our partner organisations for supporting the event and making it really special as well as everyone at Philips High.