On Friday 22nd February one of the many Festivals taking place across London and the rest of the country that have been organised by Youth Board members from the Challenge Network took place in Croydon College. The day was a chance for young people aged 14-17 to come together and share in experiencing things that they had not done before. The available workshops included African drumming, beatboxing, drama therapy, Indian dance and music improvisation.
Everyone signed in and chose the workshops they wanted to take part in, after which there was a welcome from the Youth Board and the workshops began. I myself took part in the African drumming workshop during the first session, which was facilitated by The Gary Mason Charity, and brought the group together through the unified sounds of the drumming. It was an unusual experience drumming with our eyes closed, but it enabled the group to use the sense of hearing rather than sight when trying to play in time with everyone else, and by setting the tempo of the drumming to a standard human heartbeat it enabled us all to become more relaxed and aware of our surroundings.
We had a lunch break during which everyone enjoyed food kindly donated by Asda, Tesco’s and Waitrose; then we went to our second workshop of the day. As someone who has never beatboxed before I was intrigued by the idea of giving it a try. The facilitator of the workshop was a beatboxer known as Yasson, who participated in the 2009 BBN World Championships. After being given some information about the origins and history of beatboxing, Yasson began by teaching us some of the key sounds to make in order to beatbox, and by the end we were able to create our own beatboxing rendition of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.
The day culminated in a youth-led showcase, where a mixture of workshop providers and challengers shared their talent with the other young people. It was wonderful to see the audience joining in and supporting the performers, who sang, played instruments and beatboxed, to name a few.
To put the icing on the cake, myself and one other of the Sutton and Croydon Youth Board members were invited to speak briefly on BBC Radio in London the following day on Gaby Roslin’s show, to explain what the event was about and where the others were all taking place. This was an exciting and unforgettable experience, being able to see the studio where all the magic happens and how radio broadcasting works. I even got the opportunity to beatbox alongside Yasson and Bass6 on the radio!
