‘It has so much history behind it, for such a small place’: exploring place-based, interdisciplinary and community-driven approaches to teaching local history in the Young Voices project, Southall

Young Voices: origins of the project

The origins of the project can be traced back to 2018 when SCA, residents and a range of organisations came together for a campaign called Southall Resists 40 (SR40). The campaign sought to bring together individuals and organisations who had participated in the anti-racist struggles and the uprising that followed the racist murder of teenager Gurdip Singh Chaggar in 1976, and the death of schoolteacher Blair Peach during a demonstration against far-right group the National Front, who had planned a meeting at Southall Town Hall on 23 April 1979. One of the coordinators of the campaign was Suresh Grover (SG) from The Monitoring Group, who had been closely involved in the anti-racist movement of that era. For some of the individuals involved in the SR40 campaign, coming together and sharing memories was a cathartic and liberating experience, while others came to realise that the campaign had reignited their interest in Southall’s history. One strand of SR40 was developed by a former member of the National Union of Teachers, who visited a number of Southall schools with an artist who was commissioned to produce a series of artworks based on the town’s history of anti-racist activism. Many of these, mainly canvas paintings, were displayed outside Southall Town Hall at the conclusion of the SR40 campaign on 23 April 2019, exactly 40 years after the death of Blair Peach. During these school visits, it became clear that many of the schools involved had little to no understanding of the events of the 1970s and, consequently, most schools did not teach their pupils about the local history of Southall or did so to a limited degree.

The genesis of Young Voices can therefore be traced back to the discovery of this omission and a feeling that this was a significant moment to consider how this history might be taught to schoolchildren, many of whom are third-, fourth- or fifth-generation descendants of people who migrated and settled in Southall between the 1950s and the 1970s.

Southall Community Alliance

Established in 2000, SCA is a registered charity working in Southall and surrounding areas. As an umbrella network, the charity has provided capacity-building support to local organisations, support for Southall residents and the delivery of projects that have improved resident engagement and quality of life. In this context, Young Voices might initially have appeared at odds with the charity’s usual focus. However, the charity’s long-standing connection to Southall Town Hall, combined with recent shifts in the nature of its projects, reveals an emergent relationship between Young Voices and the broader range of initiatives that SCA has been involved in concurrently. Although SCA was formally established in 2000, it has its origins in 1981 with the establishment of Unified Community Action, a body to coordinate volunteering activism in Southall. After 10 years, the group’s name was changed to the Southall Area Community Network, and in 2000 it was again rebranded as Southall Community Alliance. Throughout this period, Southall Town Hall served as the organisation’s meeting place, and it eventually became the registered office of the charity. The organisation’s vision has always been to support Southall’s disadvantaged and transient communities by building their skills, capacity and resilience to address the multiple forms of deprivation prevalent in the area. Consequently, between 2003 and 2010 the charity developed a resource centre at 10 High Street, directly opposite the Town Hall. The resource centre was the first to have free hot desk space made available for community groups, a small meeting space and even a youth community radio station, Westside Radio.

When SCA’s lease at this resource centre ended in 2010, the organisation relocated to Southall Town Hall, aiming to transform it into an inclusive community hub. Since 2011, SCA has developed a number of groundbreaking and innovative projects addressing issues such as female genital mutilation, community cohesion, health inequalities, environmental regeneration and poverty alleviation. The organisation’s presence in the Town Hall has been instrumental in shaping its programme of work and has reinforced its commitment to a secular and multicultural ethos. At the time of the Young Voices project, the charity employed four staff members and was governed by eight volunteer trustees.

Early lessons: a pilot for Young Voices

In 2021/2, as Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns were easing, SG contacted SCA after being approached by local schools who wanted us to speak to their pupils about Southall and anti-racism. Initial sessions were organised in which groups of around 30 schoolchildren visited Southall Town Hall to take part in discussions centred on key aspects of the town’s history. These visits primarily involved Year 6 primary school children aged 10–11 and provided an opportunity to explore how Southall’s history could be taught in ways that were engaging, age-appropriate, accessible, inclusive and responsive to diverse learning needs. With little precedent of similar Southall-focused local history projects in schools, lessons were planned without being able to consider how this history had been taught in the past. These early lessons also enabled a realisation of the significance of bringing children to a site such as the Town Hall, given its pivotal role in the history that was being taught. Led jointly by SG and JB, the 60-minute sessions began with a brief history quiz to engage students before transitioning into a more detailed examination of local history, concluding with individual conversations between SG and participants on race equality and anti-racism. The quiz comprised five questions designed to be both fun and engaging while introducing key aspects of Southall’s local history – such as its industrial past, patterns of migration and the anti-racist activism of the 1970s and 1980s.

Positive feedback from participating schools and groups of children motivated us to begin exploring funding opportunities. Although we recognised that the schoolchildren had little or no prior knowledge of the era, they appeared deeply engaged by the examples of inequality experienced by ethnic minority residents in the past. Archival material was used in most of the sessions; however, it soon became clear that resources on this aspect of history were limited. As a result, there was a growing recognition that existing archives held significant potential to be adapted and expanded into new teaching and learning materials – particularly in the light of the lack of books and educational resources tailored to this age group.

Funding and organisation

Once this series of lessons had been piloted and further developed, SCA submitted a funding proposal to John Lyon’s Charity, early in 2022, for the Young Voices project. The project sought to work with most of the four high schools and 17 primary schools in Southall. The inclusion of art stemmed from a desire to creatively explore the relationship between narrative, storytelling and history while also providing a space to connect local history with the lived experiences of the children we were teaching. Art offered children a meaningful outlet to reflect on and express their feelings about what they had learned after each history lesson. The project also included the production of a short film, Young Voices (2024), which aimed to document our work with schools, showcase the children’s participation and give them a platform to share their thoughts and feelings on camera. Alongside these reflections, the children themselves recount the history they have learned.

Recognising that the artistic component of the project would require specialist expertise, SCA approached MS, a Fine Art lecturer at Central Saint Martins (UAL), and secured his involvement. MS had previously collaborated with SCA on several occasions, most notably as Project Coordinator and Researcher on Imagining India (2019–21), a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and UAL. One of the aims of this project was to establish a transnational network of scholars, community activists, citizens, artists, writers and filmmakers who would seek to address two of the themes highlighted in the call: ‘Cultural Heritage Transformations’ and ‘Identities and Migration’. In its initial phase, the project aimed to engage first-generation South Asian communities in Southall through visual and performing arts, exploring evolving relationships with India, the role of cultural heritage and the local area’s importance in sustaining these connections. The project’s direction shifted in response to the pandemic and ultimately culminated in a four-week community arts festival, Southall Ever After. Held across key local sites (including Southall Park, the high street and an urban nature reserve) shortly after lockdowns ended, the festival offered creative spaces for the community to reflect on the town’s past, present and future through pop-up exhibitions, live performances and intergenerational art activities. MS’s practice centres on socially engaged art, autoethnography and trauma-informed pedagogies. As a second-generation diasporic artist born and raised in Southall, his lived experience and interests closely aligned with the aims of Young Voices. He was therefore asked to lead the project’s arts provision and to direct and edit the project film.

As discovered through Southall Ever After, after lockdown, there was a renewed interest in the local area – possibly driven by a need to reconnect with community sites and people, as well as the increased challenges of organising field trips post-pandemic. This broader impulse may have influenced schools to reach out to SCA to facilitate lessons outside the classroom, likely as a way to help children re-engage with their local environment after extended periods of isolation. Yemini et al. (2023) describe how, after a significant period of time of lessons being held outside the physical walls of the classroom, the new learning environments created as a consequence of the pandemic ‘reoriented the meanings of place, non-place, and human-to-community relationships’ (p. 644). This reorientation led to daily life becoming more ‘locally and community bound’. Young Voices, thus, served as a way of experimentally using sites in the local area for learning but also to explore the role of the physical school in the community. The project sought to help re-establish a strong community–school relationship as well as to continue to build on some of the connections formed during the pandemic.

Project plan and lesson structure

On being awarded a three-year funding grant from John Lyon’s Charity, SCA began delivering lessons in schools in October 2023 at Blair Peach Primary School. Lessons began with a quiz, lasting approximately 25 minutes and based on the quiz that had been trialled during the pilot project. The quiz initially began as an icebreaker but over time it became an important way of beginning to construct a contextual framework before arriving at the lesson’s focus. This not only involved conveying socio-economic and historical information, but it also provided an opportunity to explore cultural references related to Southall, highlighting artists, writers and musicians who have drawn inspiration from the area. Children were shown images of famous people who had visited Southall, along with references from film and popular culture that some already recognised – such as the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham, which was both set and filmed in Southall. This was followed by more trivial questions involving an element of guesswork. For example, the children were asked to estimate the weekly margarine output of the world’s largest margarine factory, which had once been based in Southall, and this helped frame an understanding of place through the scale and economic value of some of the town’s previous and current industries. The use of archive images of the former margarine factory helped the children grasp how the town had evolved and also how and why its communities had changed over time in response to changes in industry and production. The quiz questions then moved into more thought-provoking territory as children were introduced to concepts of immigration and examples of the resentment and racism experienced by migrant communities at the time.

The quiz and history talk were delivered primarily by JB and SG, with several lessons co-taught with NB. This was followed by a short talk and an interactive interview between SG and the children. Speaking directly with someone who had lived through the era offered children a form of living history, a new experience compared with learning solely from books and archival materials. The interview’s informal and intimate setting encouraged the children to engage more actively. The children were especially engaged by SG’s accounts of racist experiences, which prompted reflection on how their own school lives differed from those of his generation. The interviews often took on a ‘forensic’ tone, for example, when SG described a racist assault and showed a photo of his bandaged head taken shortly after the incident. Such examples sparked curiosity and led to more detailed and specific questions from the children.

Badge-making was introduced as a small-scale art activity and became a regular part of all history lessons. Children designed badges based on the history that had been shared with them. However, a significant number of children produced pro-Palestine badges in response to the task, which suggested that children may have been more conversant with the concepts of religious and racial discrimination than we had initially envisaged. The connection children had drawn between their local history and Palestine offered insight into their understanding of racism and injustice in 2024. While the historical periods differed, some of their responses reflected an awareness of injustice, Islamophobia and power differentials.

After history lessons, art workshops between two and three hours in length were facilitated by MS with a number of primary and high schools. MS taught a range of fine art practices that complemented the history teaching. By the end of the first year of the project, the artworks included numerous paintings, sculptures and 11 large collaboratively produced silk paintings.

SCA also set up an essay-writing competition encouraging schools to submit up to 20 essays, each about aspects of local history. The essays were then assessed by a panel of judges and individual certificates were awarded to all entrants and prizes to schools that produced particularly exceptional work. All artworks and essays were publicly displayed at ‘Southall Resists’, an exhibition arranged at Villiers High School, Southall, on 23 April 2024 (Figure 1 and Figure 2). The event was attended by over 500 pupils and staff from 10 Southall schools, and some of the participating children delivered speeches reflecting on their experience of the project and on having their interpretations of local history publicly exhibited. The exhibition also provided the first opportunity to publicly present the project film.

Figure 1

Theatre at Villiers High School during the second screening of the Young Voices film on 23 April 2024 

Figure 2

Installation view featuring a selection of artwork on display at Villiers High School 

Although Southall has no museum, arts centre, gallery or cinema, representatives from cultural institutions in other parts of the London Borough of Ealing attended the exhibition and later expressed interest in showcasing the children’s work. As a result, Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery exhibited a selection from 21 September to 3 November 2024 (Figure 3), followed by Gunnersbury Park Museum from 9 November 2024 to 30 July 2025. These exhibitions created new opportunities for continued learning beyond the classroom, attracted school visits and sparked further interest from schools and local organisations in engaging with the project.

Figure 3

Installation views of ‘Southall Resists’ 2024 at Pitzhanger Manor Museum and Gallery, London, 2024 

Pedagogies of place: developing civic identity and connection through local learning

At the heart of Young Voices is an interest in exploring place-conscious and place-responsive approaches to education – more commonly referred to as place-based pedagogy. This pedagogical framework broadly encompasses educational practices that are ‘locally driven, community based, or ecologically focused’ (Yemini et al., 2023, p. 641). Gruenewald (2003, p. 620) describes place-conscious education as incorporating experiential learning, context-based learning, problem-posing education, outdoor education and community-based education, all of which include engagement with local settings. Nichols et al. (2016, p. 27) further highlight the importance of beginning with the child’s own context, the experiences they carry and the knowledge they bring. Through this lens, a deeper attachment to the local community is more likely to develop. Nichols et al. (2016) also observes how place-based education ‘extends the paradigm of what we know outward and reconnects the school to the world in personal, cultural, and contextual ways’ (p. 29).

These principles remain foundational to Young Voices, which aims to strengthen connections to community and foster the development of civic identity, community engagement and civic imagination. The project facilitators share a personal understanding of cultivating a sense of place from early childhood, and for children from diasporic backgrounds more particularly. This perspective is also informed by some facilitators’ personal histories, shaped by the resilience and solidarity within migrant communities during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the collective resistance mobilised during the anti-racist uprising of that era.

Young Voices aims to strengthen children’s connection to their local area, with the hope that this deepened relationship will foster greater civic and social engagement in their later lives. Central to this is a child-led approach that prioritises agency and self-expression – principles reflected in the project’s very name, Young Voices. The title signifies the importance of empowering children to develop and articulate their own perspectives within both their communities and educational spaces, preparing them to become active citizens whose perspectives and contributions are recognised, valued and heard.

Several studies link learning local history to increased social engagement. For example, Stefaniak et al. (2017) found that teaching local history to teenagers not only boosted civic interest but also strengthened emotional ties to their community, encouraging greater participation in socially beneficial activities. Central to our aim was the concept of ‘place attachment’ – the emotional bond between individuals and specific places (Altman and Low, 1992). With emotion, affect and feeling at its core, we were particularly drawn to the idea of subjective, phenomenological encounters with place, situated within broader cultural and historical contexts. This led us to reflect on our own emotional ties to the local environment: its buildings, landmarks and material culture, and the meanings these hold for Southall’s diasporic communities. These reflections shaped our pedagogical approach, which combined classroom-based learning with activities held across diverse local sites, allowing children to engage directly with the material and cultural fabric of the town.

Evans and Savage (2015) emphasise the importance of incorporating the personal, political, and the pedagogical in developing an area-based curriculum, making the local context a foundational and integral part of education. Drawing on the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce’s (RSA) definition, which aligns closely with the goals of Young Voices, an area-based curriculum is one that enhances young people’s educational experiences by creating meaningful connections with surrounding communities, cities and cultures while distributing educational efforts across local people, organisations and institutions (RSA, 2009, cited in Evans and Savage, 2015, p. 6). Crucially, the RSA frames this curriculum as being about a place – utilising local context and resources to guide learning; by a place – co-designed by schools and community stakeholders; and for a place – addressing the specific needs of children and their communities (RSA, 2012, p. 5, cited in Evans and Savage, 2015, p. 6).

Contextual insights into how Southall had changed and the impact this had on people were crucial for helping children develop a broader understanding of the historical period. These insights aided their imagination and formed part of our strategy in thinking about how we embed empathy within the sessions – an important goal despite the recognised challenges of teaching empathy through local history. Harris and Foreman-Peck (2004) highlight that empathy in history education requires ‘contextual knowledge, life experience, and historical evidence’ for children to make the necessary imaginative leap, which is often missing. Discussions around immigration and population provided both the context and evidence needed while encouraging reflection on what people of the time might have experienced and felt prior to encountering racist hostility. By examining xenophobic attitudes from groups such as the Southall Residents Association, children began to grasp that Southall in the 1960s and 1970s was markedly different from today. Facilitators with first-hand experience of the era helped bridge the gap in understanding the mindset of adults at that time. As Harris and Foreman-Peck (2004) note, ‘tasks that are based on real individuals, grounded in evidence, offer a problem-solving element and examine people’s perspectives and motivation are more likely to elicit worthy empathy work’ (p. 108). By grounding learning in the lived experiences, emotions and perspectives of people from the past, children gained a deeper understanding of the social conditions that gave rise to collective resistance. This approach enabled them to see resistance not as abstract or distant, but as a collective human response driven by shared challenges and injustice. This further emphasised ways in which local communities hold a wealth of intergenerational knowledge, shaped by shared experiences of mutual support and collective action.

Local history in Southall schools: decolonial and community-based education

Most of the schools we visited had not previously taught the aspects of Southall’s history we aimed to cover, making it challenging to condense a complex subject into a single one-hour lesson. The teaching of history was made easier in schools where this local history was embedded into the curriculum, in schools such as Three Bridges Primary, Blair Peach Primary and Khalsa Primary, for example. Some schools taught with an awareness of Southall as a changing town and of its changing demographics, a result of new migration from other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia, as well as new inhabitants as a consequence of regeneration, brought about by the introduction of Crossrail, a new train line offering a faster connection between Southall and Central (and other parts of) London. The children at schools who had been learning about Southall prior to Young Voices history lessons had shown SCA staff their exercise books and online research, and so our lessons aimed to enhance and add to this prior learning.

Three Bridges Primary School (2024) teaches a Year 6 history curriculum that covers Southall in a number of ways, particularly the Uprising and events of 1979. A unit titled ‘How does the past shape our future?’ explores Southall through three key questions: Where is Southall? What is its history? And why was 1979 an important year in Southall’s history? The school is unique in how awareness and interest in the local area is nurtured from an early age, and the many strands of learning that emerge from earlier units in the history curriculum can be seen to come together in the Year 6 unit. For example, in Year 1, children engage in a unit titled ‘What was life like for our grandparents?’, which is followed by a unit titled ‘Who are our local heroes?’. In Year 4, the unit titled ‘Is it better to be a child now than in the past?’ includes reflection on questions such as ‘What was it like to be a child in Southall in World War II?’ (Three Bridges Primary School, 2024). Ampartzaki (2023) emphasises that, in addition to discovering meaningful connections to their own family and community histories, ‘stories about real life local heroes or landmarks in a children’s community capture their attention and captivate their minds’ (p. 2). These unit topics and questions embody such educational goals. During an interview for the project film, a teacher at Three Bridges describes ways in which the school has been interested in decolonising teaching and learning, and how the detailed emphasis on local history emerged from this.

When pupils were asked what kind of history they learned in school, many referenced topics such as the Anglo-Saxons or Romans. Project facilitators, drawing from their own experiences, recognised this as reflective of a largely Eurocentric curriculum centred on white, male perspectives, which can often leave diasporic children struggling to connect, leading to disengagement and a sense of exclusion from British history (Moncrieffe, 2020). For example, MS recalls finishing secondary school in the 1990s without ever having been taught about the local area. Within decolonial discourse, there is growing awareness that when curricula fail to reflect students’ identities and lived experiences, it can undermine their sense of belonging, both to their heritage and to the country in which they were born. The dominance of European narratives in classrooms can constitute a form of ‘epistemic violence’ (Spivak, 1999), enforcing a singular, authoritative version of history. This shapes not only how students perceive the past but also how they interpret the present and envision their future (Moncrieffe, 2020). As Moncrieffe et al. (2020, p. 9) argue, decolonising the curriculum requires intentional effort from educators, beginning with a recognition that mainstream curricula often reflect the perspectives of dominant social groups. This can result in a narrow, monocultural worldview where marginalised voices are overlooked. As they emphasise, ‘decolonising the curriculum is therefore about seeing and appreciating the world – past, present and future – by ensuring that the views and voices of marginalised groups are heard, acknowledged and appreciated’ (Moncrieffe et al., 2020, p. 9).

In the context of decolonised curricula, examining how diasporic communities have historically developed alternative learning spaces reveals how they have responded to exclusions within mainstream education. One notable example is the supplementary schools movement in England, which emerged in the late 1960s as a vital form of community-based education and a site of independent Black cultural expression (Gerrard, 2012). These schools were often volunteer-led and provided instruction in subjects typically absent from the national curriculum, such as Black history. Within South Asian diasporic communities in Southall, supplementary education frequently took place in religious settings, such as weekend schools. MS, for example, recalls attending Saturday classes at a gurdwara in the 1980s, where lessons focused on Sikhism and Punjabi language. While Young Voices was not intended as a form of supplementary schooling, we saw our role as bridging the gap between formal education and the cultural knowledge and values embedded within the home and community. By drawing on lived experiences of children, community histories and intergenerational knowledge, the project worked to decentralise dominant historical narratives often shaped by mainstream educational frameworks. In doing so, it engaged with the aims of decolonial education by challenging the idea that meaningful learning only happens within institutional frameworks or through dominant cultural lenses. As Hawkey and Prior (2010) note, ‘children from different economic, ethnic, or geographic backgrounds bring different perspectives to school; these ideas, myths, and knowledge, shaped by families and communities, have an impact on what and how children learn’ (p. 232). The cultural identities of the children were, therefore, not only acknowledged but also positioned as valuable sources of insight and learning.

Developing educational material: Southall’s diasporic modalities of resistance and identity

Developing engaging and relevant material for the history and art workshops presented several challenges. Seixas (2015) highlights the difficulty of selecting focal points based on ‘historical significance’, asking, ‘what characterises the move from that which is personally interesting to that which is historically significant?’ (p. 6). Developing lesson content often began with what facilitators were personally interested in, which was then explored in relation to broader community relevance and historical importance.

We explored Southall’s history of resistance through a series of interconnected micro-narratives, each tied to broader themes such as migration and the experiences of diasporic communities across the UK. This approach was aptly echoed in the choice of title of the exhibition produced by Gunnersbury Park Museum: ‘Peoples Unite: How Southall Changed the Country’. As Seixas (2015) notes:

in order for a particular action by a particular group of people to gain significance, they still need to be linked, explicitly or implicitly, to a larger narrative. It is the meaning of that narrative – its relevance and importance to issues ‘we’ face today – that lends significance to its particular elements. (p. 6)

In a qualitative study by Hawkey and Prior (2010) on the perspectives of minority ethnic adolescents learning history in inner cities in England, children were found to have learned fragmented historical facts with little understanding of broader narratives or how these events fit into any bigger picture or ‘overview narrative’. For Gruenewald (2003), by moving beyond place as a simple geographic term, the concept of place highlights connections between local contexts and larger global trends. One of our aims was to help bridge such gaps through linking the local with the global, and the micro with the macro.

We also wanted to emphasise the idea of diasporic connectivity in bridging these gaps, with an understanding that engaging with local history in a diasporic place inevitably means engaging with the identities of the children in the classroom. As Gholami (2023) explains, the notion of diaspora and the condition of ‘being diasporic’ can give rise to ‘potentially unique forms of social praxis’, enabling ‘novel forms of interaction between culturally and politically diverse but cohabiting communities’ (p. 3). For Gholami, a diasporic community does not have a ‘central nervous system, no clear command or control structure’ (p. 3). Instead, it comprises multiple groupings and positionalities that may align or come into conflict at different times, depending on the issues at hand. This perspective is especially relevant in our emphasis during lessons on the solidarities that emerged in Southall during the 1970s as South Asian and Caribbean communities came together to resist racism, as well as inclusion of the lived experiences of migrant communities from the 1960s to 1980s. Understanding diaspora in this way, as both a product of migration and a dynamic, relational process, helped illuminate how historical and present-day connections across communities are formed and sustained.

This history of resistance felt especially resonant in the light of the resurgence of far-right ideologies and the wave of riots that swept the UK in the summer of 2024, reminiscent of National Front activity in the 1970s. Coincidentally, midway through the first year of the project, Channel 4 released the documentary series Defiance: Fighting the Far Right, which traced how Britain’s South Asian communities resisted far-right violence and racism between 1976 and 1981. This timely context informed our approach to framing and teaching this history, reinforcing its ongoing relevance and the need to connect past struggles with the present. It also allowed us to place this history within a wider understanding of Southall’s past, highlighting the interconnectedness of different moments of resistance and change.

Very often we hear residents who have been living in Southall say, ‘Southall has changed so much’. During school visits, children are asked to guess Southall’s population in 1801, and most are surprised to learn it was just 697. From 697 in 1801 to over 80,500 in 2021 (Ealing Council, 2024), how did Southall evolve, and what drove this transformation?

In 1801, Southall was a small hamlet of just 697 residents, primarily dependent on local farming, where barley was grown and sheep and cows were reared. However, the nineteenth century saw significant changes, particularly with the opening of a new railway line from London to the west by the Great Western Railway Company in 1838 (Brah, 1999; Ealing Council, n.d.). This improved transportation shifted the town’s economic focus from farming to industry. Factories began to dominate, with the Otto Monsted margarine factory, established in 1895, becoming the largest. Other industries, including a flour mill, gas works and chemical plants, also thrived (Ealing Council, n.d.).

Before the Second World War, Southall and the surrounding areas attracted Irish migrants and unemployed workers from Wales seeking jobs in local industries. However, after the war, the area saw an influx of African-Caribbean and South Asian migrants. This shift was driven by a post-war labour shortage, caused by the economic boom and poor working conditions that led many white workers to leave factory jobs for better opportunities. To fill the gap, Britain turned to its former colonies, offering jobs and British citizenship (Brah, 1999). In Southall’s history, a key turning point came when the personnel officer at Woolf’s Rubber Factory, who had served alongside Asian soldiers during the war in the Middle East, advocated for the hiring of Asian workers. The Indian workers first organised themselves and formed the Indian Workers Association (IWA) in 1938 in the Midlands. However, the IWA disintegrated soon after Indian independence (Ramamurthy, 2006). In the 1950s, the Indian workers employed in factories organised themselves and re-formed the IWA, becoming active in union campaigns to improve working conditions, reflecting the broader political and labour movement in the area (Brah, 1999).

The IWA was heavily male dominated in its early years. However, during the late 1960s and 1970s, East African Asians began migrating with their families, driven by post-independence policies in Africa that imposed employment and trade restrictions on non-citizens (Striking Women, n.d.). This new wave of immigration introduced additional challenges, as racism extended beyond the workplace and into schools, housing and stricter immigration policies, which often forced men to be separated from their families (Ramamurthy, 2006). In response to fears of local schools becoming ‘ghetto schools’, the Conservative government, supported by the local white population, implemented a policy of ‘bussing’. This policy mandated that no school could have more than 30 per cent immigrant students, and any children exceeding that percentage were sent to schools in other areas (Virdi, 2022). The IWA played a crucial role in mobilising the immigrant communities in Southall, organising pickets and protests against these racist policies (Ramamurthy, 2006).

In his journal, R. J. Meads (1983) writes:

By this time (1981) Southall’s population is over 82,000, with nearly 65% multiracial – mostly of Asian origin. The whole of Southall has become badly run down. Litter is everywhere and, what makes things a lot worse, so much today is packed in disposable containers which are just thrown anywhere. Gone are most front gardens, these have made way for cars to park. South Road, which used to be one of the best, is now deplorable. Our new citizens seem to love bright colours which shows when they decorate their houses – some very good, but not all – and add to this, the rubbish left in the front gardens has a very bad effect on our terrace-type streets. (p. 82)

During her research interviews in 1976, Avtar Brah (1999) encountered similar narratives of cultural change in Southall and developed a compelling analogy. In her study, she likens the white British population and culture to a ‘feminised entity’ characterised by tidy rural domesticity and tranquillity, which is soiled by the arrival of ‘intruders’ or ‘new citizens’ – as Meads refers to South Asian immigrants in his account. These ‘new citizens’ are portrayed as a masculine force, tarnishing the perceived purity and beauty of Southall, a place once idealised as serene and untouched. Through this lens, Brah highlights the tension between the established community and the immigrants, who are seen as intruders altering the social and cultural fabric of the area. In this climate, the immigrants were recast as the ‘colonisers’, reversing the colonial power dynamic, as they were perceived to have ‘taken over’ (Brah, 1999).

The shared sentiment among Southall’s white residents of being ‘taken over’ by ‘new citizens’ was quickly exploited by far-right groups such as the National Front and further inflamed by the media. On 4 May 1976, the headline ‘Scandal of £600 a week immigrants’ sparked similar stories in other newspapers, sensationalising the arrival of Asians expelled from Uganda in 1972 (Striking Women, n.d.) and Malawi in 1976 as an ‘invasion’ of ‘our’ country. This media-fuelled hate led to the murders of two Bangladeshis in East London, both of whom were stabbed without being robbed, indicating that the motive was purely racist. Shortly after, on 4 June 1976, in Southall, Gurdip Singh Chaggar was fatally stabbed by racists outside the Dominion Cinema. Despite the clear racial motivation, the Metropolitan Police commissioner denied that the attack was racially motivated (Ramamurthy, 2006). Referring to Chaggar’s death, John Kingsley Read, leader of the National Party, cruelly declared, ‘One down, a million to go’, underscoring the deep-rooted racist attitudes that permeated society (Nijjar, 2021).

When we visit schools, we discuss the murder of Chaggar and reflect on how, if he were still alive, he might look like his brother (now in his 70s), whose photograph we share with the pupils. In lessons SG often recounts his experience of being at the scene of the murder, where he asked the police, ‘Did somebody die there?’ The police casually replied, ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s just Indian blood’, as though this blood was unworthy of justice.

The following Sunday, both the South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities voiced their outrage at a meeting organised by the IWA. While the elders blamed the National Front and the media for the incident, this response did not satisfy the young Asian men, who were facing daily harassment on the streets and within institutions. They sought more vigorous action. The IWA (Southall) favoured integration with British social organisations and trade unions, advocating for dialogue and negotiation. However, the younger generation believed that a more forceful response was necessary. Determined to ‘fight like lions’, they marched to the police station to stage a sit-in, giving birth to the Southall Youth Movement (SYM) with this protest (Ramamurthy, 2006).

Amid rising racial tensions, the National Front planned a meeting at Southall Town Hall to discuss ways to address increasing immigration and reclaim what they saw as a predominantly white, English town from Black and Asian communities. In response, immigrant groups from Southall and across London, along with their allies, organised a peaceful protest outside the Town Hall as a show of solidarity. However, on 23 April 1979, police indifference escalated into brutality. Without provocation, 2,756 police officers, equipped with dogs, horses, shields, vans and a helicopter, surrounded the protesters, trapping them in a cordon. Among the protesters was Blair Peach, a teacher from East London. While attempting to escape the police violence, Peach was struck on the head by a truncheon wielded by an officer and later died from his injuries. Since then, ongoing efforts have been made by Peach’s partner, Celia Stubbs, to seek justice for his death. On the day of the protest, 342 protesters, mostly Asian, were charged with various offences (Nijjar, 2021). Peach’s death, along with the police’s violent treatment of protesters, became emblematic of the fight against racism in England.

To honour his memory, SCA installed a commemorative plaque on the Southall Town Hall building in 2019, marking exactly 40 years since Blair Peach’s death, as part of the SR40 anniversary. When schools visit us at the Town Hall, we show pupils the plaques commemorating Blair Peach, Gurdip Singh Chaggar and Misty in Roots. The story of Misty in Roots, a reggae band also attacked during the 1979 protests, is part of Southall’s enduring fight for justice, as one band member, Clarence Baker, fell into a coma for three months after suffering police brutality.

Southall Town Hall, thus, is a key site and location for the teaching of history. Built in 1879 by a rich landowning family, the Town Hall served as a civic building until the early 1980s. It was a place where advice services, educational classes and other civic functions were available. Some of these functions began to change from 1965 onwards when Southall became part of the London Borough of Ealing, and the civic role of the Town Hall began to diminish (British History Online, 2024). By the time the National Front arrived in April 1979, the building was widely accepted as a community asset and focal point. Alongside growing and diverse communities being established, changes were seen in the way the Town Hall was being used. Parts of this narrative are significant in teaching, to enable an understanding of why the resistance of 1979 was centred around the Town Hall.

Tensions between racists and immigrants in Southall and other parts of the UK did not end after 1979. On 3 July 1981, the band Oi!, known for attracting racist followers, was scheduled to perform at the Hambrough Tavern. Shopkeepers were warned that large numbers of skinheads might attend, and this proved true when a busload of racist skinheads arrived, damaging shops, harassing Asian residents and assaulting an Asian woman. This provocation triggered South Asian youths to retaliate by burning down the pub after the police failed to protect the community from attacks (Nijjar, 2021).

Throughout this narrative, the focus has largely been on men forming alliances and fighting against racism, with the voices of women notably absent. Women who migrated to the UK in the 1970s faced not only racism but also sexism in the workplace, domestic abuse at home and an overwhelming burden of unpaid care work. One of the prominent organisations that emerged from these struggles was Southall Black Sisters, which has played a key role in challenging discriminatory policies against Black and minoritised women in the UK. Southall Black Sisters gained prominence by campaigning against degrading virginity tests imposed on South Asian women at Heathrow Airport, a discriminatory practice rooted in patriarchal and racial stereotypes used to enforce UK immigration controls (Southall Black Sisters, n.d.; Travis, 2011).

Material cultures: Southall Town Hall

The earlier SR40 campaign brought together individuals with an interest in historical studies, as well as those connected to organisations active during the 1970s, including the SYM, the IWA, the Anti-Nazi League, the Southall Monitoring Group and Southall Black Sisters. This renewed focus sparked growing interest in Southall’s civic society and built environment. However, as of 2019, this had yet to be reflected in the local school curriculum. Understanding Southall’s material landmarks extended beyond buildings to include neighbourhoods and public spaces unfamiliar to many pupils. To grasp the challenges faced by migrant communities, it was important that children had an understanding of how Southall had historically changed and evolved.

As has been seen, over time the Town Hall’s purpose and function has evolved, and in the past decade it has provided office space for local businesses and groups. However, the historical significance of the building was never lost on local communities, and when, in 2018, Ealing Council sought to sell the building to a nearby religious organisation, SCA and partners challenged the sale. This resistance to losing our main civic building was underpinned by an earlier resistance of communities coming together and gathering an identity through this building. The building was saved, enabling a renewed appreciation of its secular value in an increasingly multicultural and multiracial Southall. Although Young Voices emerged from the SR40 campaign of 2019, in turn, that campaign owes a significant debt to the 2018 campaign to save the Town Hall from being sold.

In delivering a project on community resistance to racism, we recognised the need to move beyond traditional methods and embrace alternative ways of sharing knowledge. This approach revealed rich opportunities for teaching and learning. A core aim of the project was to use the teaching of local history to foster pride in Southall, particularly among children who sometimes held negative perceptions of the area. A central part of our approach was helping children understand that physical spaces and buildings can play a pivotal role in shaping local history. Lessons explored former buildings, businesses and public spaces that had changed or disappeared but had once contributed to Southall’s transformation. We treated place as a multidisciplinary concept. Through this lens, children began to see Southall as a dynamic whole, where changes in population, identity and relationships unfolded across different areas and communities. Key sites discussed included Southall Town Hall, Southall Manor House, Dominion Cinema, the Victory Pub and the Hambrough Tavern. While not all were directly linked to anti-racist resistance, they illustrated how the use and meaning of space evolves over time.

Most children were not only unaware of local landmarks but also had little prior experience with place-based, experiential learning. We encouraged this through quizzes, talks and the use of photographs and images highlighting important buildings. However, history truly came alive through short, guided walks discussing landmarks and by holding visits and lessons at the Town Hall.

For example, during a recent visit facilitated by NB, children eagerly asked about where the National Front had met in the building. Teachers supported this curiosity, enhancing the experience of imagining the events in that very room. Watching archival footage from the 1979 BBC documentary Southall on Trial, showing National Front members arriving at the Town Hall, made the history visceral and immediate. Learning directly beneath the room where the meetings took place transformed the experience, helping children connect emotionally and physically to the past.

This fostered a new awareness of places they often passed without notice; many were unfamiliar with the Town Hall’s purpose. One child interviewed for the Young Voices film exclaims, ‘I never knew it had a town hall!’ This appreciation was further augmented through activity as part of another SCA project, ‘Art Zones’ – regular outdoor art events held outside the Town Hall during school breaks, which many children began and continue to attend, strengthening their connection to the building as both a community hub and a creative space.

Art as inquiry: history, identity and place through creative practice

By the end of the project’s first year, hundreds of artworks had been created. The art workshops were designed to give children space to visually represent, interpret and express their feelings about what they had learned. The sessions often began with a reflection activity, allowing children to recall and discuss what they remembered from the local history workshop – usually held three to four weeks earlier. Emphasis was sometimes placed on the idea of a workshop rather than a lesson, with the distinction lying in the facilitation style: children were invited to shape the direction of their work, and the sessions were flexible, adapting to their interests and ideas. The workshops explored a range of artistic practices, including silk painting, model-making, mural design and painting on canvas – much of it produced collaboratively. Some of the materials used referenced materials that could be commonly encountered or purchased in shops in the local area, for example, silk.

It was evident in most workshops that making art in response to this history came naturally to the children, who were intuitively drawn to a focus or subject for what they wanted to create. Creating art in response to themes, topics and time periods learned in history lessons is not uncommon in primary and secondary education. However, the framework established for the making of this work felt unique in that it was built on an underlying feeling that this history was very much part of many of the children’s own personal and collective identities. The fostering of this sense of agency related, for example, to children being able to reference aspects of places, people and culture that they were familiar with, and this came with a sense of having rights and responsibilities in determining how this past would be represented. The notion that this was in many ways their history was also channelled through the fact that this was the history of the place where they currently live, but also where, for many of the children, their grandparents and great-grandparents had settled when they arrived between the 1950s and 1970s. The recognition and understanding of this often led to discussion with children about their family histories and opened up questions around why Southall had become the place where they decided to settle, as well as discussion around the other challenges and opportunities they may have faced at the point of arrival.

The art workshops, therefore, adopted an inquiry-based approach, creating space for conversation, dialogue and storytelling. This included sharing additional stories of local people and landmarks that captured the pupils’ imagination. It was through the more informal conversations with children during art workshops that we became increasingly aware of the nature and routes of transmission of passed down, ‘inherited’ memories that many of the children were already processing and were able to reference in workshops, memories that could be described as ‘postmemory’ (Hirsch, 1996). These personal histories and inherited stories provided perspective and context in understanding the many other histories of Southall, a recognition that individual and personal stories, family histories and archives are very much part of and are just as significant as forms of ‘micro’ narratives as the ‘meta’ or ‘macro’ narratives that these workshops provided for children to learn about and reflect on. Art workshops therefore enabled children to bring in their own reference points and find connections between each other. Doull (2025) describes how local environments are rich in potential and contain resources that provide children with challenging enquiry projects. Information has to be ‘unearthed and then interpreted’ and a space is opened up for children to bring their own lived experience of place, allowing them to function as ‘consulting experts’ for the exploration. This notion aligns with principles in place-based education, where students are not seen as passive recipients of knowledge but as active co-creators, engaging in a dialogic learning environment that challenges traditional, top-down models of education – what Paulo Freire (2017) described as the ‘banking’ model. Consequently, children approached art-making with a personal sense of passion and inquiry that was unique and grounded in a feeling that, for some, their families had played a role in this history. This was reflected, for example, through the way in which, in some artworks, children drew figurative representations of their grandparents or great-grandparents as young protesters, imagining them being part of a crowd, or through comments from children on completing an artwork: one child, when interviewed, commented, ‘I feel more passionate, more proud for Southall’. Another commented, ‘my grandpa used to live here, then my Dad lived here and now I live here … it has so much history behind it for such a small place’ (Southall Community Alliance, 2024). Through this teaching of local history intertwined with the social and cultural identities of the children, the children became vital sources of information and experience. What did they know about this place they have always called home? How did they acquire this ‘knowledge’? How much more could they discover outside the classroom through further dialogue with parents and grandparents?

On reflection, this mode of interdisciplinary teaching could be considered to be ‘child-centric’. For Hales (2018, p. 671), a child’s ‘locality and the events that take place there are pivotal in grounding history education in a context that makes sense to that individual child’. Hales also argues that ‘local’ does not ‘necessarily mean the immediate physical space or context’ but could also mean their ‘culture and heritage, which may not be geographically based where they are growing up and being educated’ (2018, p. 671). The sociocultural learning environment was thus altered through these sessions, beyond what Leander et al. describe as a ‘material location’ to a ‘conceived or imagined space – an imagined geography of a particular kind’ (Leander et al., 2010, p. 331). For many children this might mean imagining the countries their families would have lived in before arriving here (e.g., India, Pakistan, Somalia) or imagining what the local area would have looked, felt and sounded like in the 1970s. There was often, therefore, a focus on social and cultural contexts of the time, which enabled workshops to adopt an interdisciplinary approach, in particular, what buildings looked like, how people dressed, music that was popular. In one class, reggae music by the band Misty in Roots was played after children had said they were unsure of what reggae sounded like. All these references enabled children to continue to build a contextual framework for the history they had started to learn about.

In addition to learning about the Town Hall, through art, children were able to further explore how the function of other buildings had changed over time. A key example was in the number of cinemas that were open in the 1970s: Liberty, Century and Dominion cinemas were popular among the South Asian community and often screened Indian films. Some of these cinemas served as backdrops for the artworks; protesters were drawn walking past them and details such as film posters were drawn from archive photographs showing what the cinemas looked like at the time (Figure 4). Archive photos served as a key point of reference for artworks, and they were useful as a resource in locating both where and when events took place. They were also useful in enabling children to better contextualise and analyse photos they had seen in their domestic environments, for example, photos held in personal family albums. Some children commented on having seen photos of their grandparents or great-grandparents in the 1960s and 1970s, which was a way for them to connect the broader histories they had learned with their own personal family history. We wanted to help the children reflect on what life might have been like for first-generation migrants and to contrast this with their own experience of life in Southall today.

When interviewing children about the work they had made, many expressed a desire to create work that did this history ‘justice’, and there was a sense of wanting to show respect and reverence for the past. Consequently, much of the work had a ‘monumental’ quality – for example, a lone protester holding up a placard or statements expressing solidarity or an anti-racist sentiment. The ‘message’ would often supersede the visual composition, and consequently words were used far more than would usually be expected in art-making for this age group. Other works were more commemorative, especially works that remembered Chaggar and Peach. These were the names that children remembered from lessons, and there was an expression of sadness and tragedy in the artworks that referenced these deaths. This was all the more poignant considering Chaggar’s age when he was killed (he was only 18) and Blair Peach being a schoolteacher from East London, relatable attributes in the world of the children we taught.

Virtual mobilities are increasingly important for understanding how children use digital media and new technologies to build social connections across space and time, create virtual ‘places’ online and disrupt the spatiotemporal boundaries of their everyday lives (Leander et al., 2010, p. 330). Leander et al. draw on Appadurai’s (1996) concepts of ‘ethnoscapes’ and ‘mediascapes’ to illustrate how cultural identities and experiences are no longer confined by national borders but are shaped by global flows of people and media. These flows, in turn, reshape how, where and what children learn. During workshops, several children demonstrated familiarity with digital platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. When asked about their knowledge of Southall’s past, some referred to having seen short clips or montaged histories shared online. These interactions often served as entry points into historical interest. While designing pin badges to reflect what they had learned, many children incorporated hashtags, such as the widely used slogan #StopRacism, into their badge designs. Although typically associated with digital communication, the presence of hashtags in these physical artworks revealed children’s awareness of how messages circulate, gain popularity and inspire collective action. By linking the symbolic power of a wearable badge to the viral potential of a hashtag, children demonstrated an intuitive understanding of evolving modes of activism. This also highlighted how contemporary digital activism differs from the forms of resistance practised in the 1970s, and how such shifts influence children’s learning about social justice today.

Figure 4

Protestors Pass the Himalaya Palace Cinema, 23.04.1979, 110 cm × 100 cm. Silk Painting by Year 6 children from Khalsa Primary School, in collaboration with MS, 2024 

Learning from Southall: tools for dealing with racism

At their core, these lessons explore the concept of ‘resistance’ – its many forms, causes and meanings. Resistance can be individual or collective, intersectional, and shaped by race, class and gender across different contexts. This idea is central to the project and echoed in the exhibition title, ‘Southall Resists’. Through learning this history, children begin to understand resistance not as disobedience, but as a positive, active stance: standing up for what is right.

One of the key constraints of the project was the limited time available with pupils, restricting the depth and complexity of what could be covered. As a result, intersectional perspectives, counter-narratives and the broader nuances of racism risked being overlooked. While efforts were made to highlight multiple ways of understanding this history, the focus often remained on incidents such as racist murders or acts of violence, leaving less room to explore the more pervasive, everyday forms of racism prevalent at the time.

These subtler forms, such as ‘microaggressions’ or ‘implicit bias’, are important in providing a bridge to discussions on more pervasive forms of racism experienced today, including its expression in digital spaces. As mentioned earlier, children frequently engage with platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and other social media, where online racism is a lived reality. Drawing parallels between the racism of the 1970s and its current digital forms could help students better understand and navigate racism today. Incorporating these discussions more fully would enhance the project’s aim of equipping young people with tools to recognise and challenge racism in all its forms.

Over the course of the first year, facilitators increasingly acknowledged the relevance of the themes and topics being taught, in that what children learned could be applied socially, emotionally and practically in responding to racism. We were also increasingly aware of the psychological impact of racism on children. In exploring racialised trauma in childhood, for example, Patel (2022) emphasises the psychological toll ‘daily expectations and experiences’ of racism can take, which ‘may lead to low self-confidence and low self-efficacy’ (p. 75). Sadly, there was also a shared understanding that many of the children would likely encounter racism in their lives, if they had not already. This prompted ongoing reflection: how can local history open up conversations about confronting racism today? What practical tools can be drawn from this history and shared with students? In lessons, children often mentioned incidents of racist abuse they had seen or heard about through peers, social media or the news. Events such as the 2024 UK riots and violent racist attacks on ethnic minorities likely caused real distress for many of the children and their families, underscoring the urgency and importance of this work.

The lessons emphasised that racism may happen to you personally or be something you witness, and that speaking out, as you would against bullying or injustice, is important. Children were reminded that there is no shame in being a victim of racism, that it is never their fault, and that they should feel safe telling someone. It was also important to highlight that anyone can be racist, and that racism can exist within any community. While not explored in depth, issues such as colourism were acknowledged as potentially relevant for older pupils to think about in the future.

Children learned about the lasting psychological impact of racism and coping strategies through personal stories, such as JB’s experience of being bussed. After initial excitement at the prospect of going to a new school and meeting different students, learning that this occurred solely based on skin colour, and that children would be separated from their friends and had no agency or choice in the matter, prompted students to empathise, reflect on lost agency and consider how discriminatory policies affect individuals both then and now.

Generational differences in responding to racism are important when considering the ‘tools’ that might be suggested to children. Facilitators often recalled how their parents or relatives responded differently to racism – some dismissing it, others experiencing a deeper emotional impact. This highlights the complexity within families, where a child may be navigating racism in ways that differ from older generations. Here, the second-generation voice becomes crucial – that of someone who has also dealt with negotiating two cultures in childhood.

Our lessons aimed to embed both practical and implicit tools – both through teaching methods and the scenarios we explored with children. Before introducing practical strategies, we focused on helping children understand what racism is, creating a safe, informal space for open discussion. These conversations often connected to existing school values such as anti-bullying, leading to common advice: speak up, tell someone or report incidents. Implicitly, facilitators modelled the importance of community engagement, resilience, empathy and compassion through active involvement in the local community.

Conclusion

The bringing together of history and art through the Young Voices project has led to shifts in some of the curriculums in local schools. Schoolteachers have commented on feeling more confident in teaching and exploring Southall’s past, and more vitally, it has led to a better understanding of the backgrounds of many of the children in schools among teachers who did not previously know about the town’s history. We noticed that our teaching approach had begun to bear fruit when schools started to arrange walks and visits to particular places that we had highlighted as being of historical significance. For example, one school arranged a visit for over 60 Year 6 pupils to Southall Town Hall in April 2024, specifically to see the blue plaques. Other schools began developing history projects based upon the ideas we had introduced during our visits, and the children began writing essays and gathering images of the places that we had highlighted to them.

A key long-term outcome of the project has been the strong relationships built with schools and pupils, extending well beyond the classroom. We frequently encounter children in the community who recognise and engage with us, reflecting the lasting impact of our work. Seeing familiar adults from their own communities, especially individuals who reflect their cultural and ethnic backgrounds, provides children with meaningful role models beyond teachers or family members. Reflecting on the project, the word ‘influencer’ arose – not just in the social media sense, but as a recognition of the responsibility and potential facilitators have to positively impact young people. Many facilitators fondly recall how visitors to their own schools left lasting impressions, inspiring their own work today.

The response to the exhibition at Villiers High School was groundbreaking, and the exhibition and subsequent opportunities that emerged after it ended has created a legacy that will continue to effect change in the teaching of local history in the area for, we hope, a long time. In the absence of secular spaces for this history to be explored, our hope is that through further work on emphasising the significance of local history, such spaces will eventually begin to emerge. It is also hoped that this project will serve as a template or model for the teaching of local history in schools that can be of use to projects in other local areas.

Before Young Voices, conversations on life in the 1960s and 1970s were mainly confined and took place within the circles of people who had migrated here at the time and their children. Through Young Voices, it is hoped that children gain an understanding of the ways in which the place they live and have grown up may shape who they are. Utilising a pedagogy of place in teaching local history can help children gain a better understanding of the dimensions of being in a ‘place’, whether it is an understanding of citizenship or cultural and personal identity. This project has enabled a way into these conversations and this history for younger generations, in the hope that this may lead to some of these children being inspired to become socially engaged and connected to the community in which they live in the future.

Research ethics statement

The authors conducted the research reported in this article in accordance with recognised ethical standards for community-based and arts research.

Consent for publication statement

The authors declare that research participants’ informed consent to publication of findings – including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information – was secured prior to publication.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest with this. All efforts to sufficiently anonymise the authors during peer review of this article have been made. The authors declare no further conflicts with this article.