GAIL's Bakery St Pancras Station

The team at Old Diorama Arts Centre are currently compiling our second annual creation festival for artists with experience of homelessness, now renamed One Roof. In January 2023, ODAC welcomed over 200 visitors to the One Festival of Homeless Arts, to enjoy a range of artistic workshops; including wire sculpting, mudlarking, mask making, and more. We received great feedback from attendees of that festival, some calling it ‘a wonderful holiday’ and promising to return for the next one. We’re holding them to that, and hope to see as many repeat visitors as possible, along with - fingers crossed! - plenty of new faces as well. We are programming one jam-packed week of workshops and classes, plus an open studio space for a second week for artists to spend time on their independent work. We’re hoping to expand the range of the workshops available, and to promote sales of any newly created work the artists wish to sell, with all proceeds going directly to them. In addition to enjoying a week or more of outstanding creative company, we are zeroing in on what we can learn during One Roof 2024. The dedicated arts and homelessness team at ODAC are looking forward to discussions with festival attendees regarding sessions that they might like to attend on a regular basis. Our ideal situation would be to establish a year-round programme of diverse art workshops, co-created with One Roof attendees, incorporating dance, wellness, live arts, music and storytelling, alongside the visual art that put the festival on the map. So we're currently trying to gather volunteers, food donations, and anything going that might be useful to a collective of genre-spanning artists with experience of homelessness. We try to provide a hot lunch each day for all attendees, and would love to be able to offer something for breakfast, plus snacks throughout the afternoon. Over 200 people attended our last festival, so it's a high bar to be able to accommodate and provide for everyone.

We collect donations of food, mostly non-perishable, and toiletries, to redistribute to local people in need of crisis support. We use the Trussell Trust processes of front-line professionals issuing vouchers, so what our volunteers do is issue food at distribution sessions, four times a week. We help on average over 100 households a week, so that has been nearly 6,000 people this last year. Most fall into poverty and debt due to a crisis such as illness or unemployment or benefit delays. In a rich country like the U.K. we don’t see the wealth trickle down to our most vulnerable, so we need to combat austerity with kindness.

The Youth Centre at Coram’s Fields is a safe space for young people 8 – 19, to experience achievement, leadership, enjoyment, friendship and recognition. Young people progress into adulthood equipped to manage the challenges ahead of them and have meaningful relationships with their community and have broader horizons. Support from the Youth Programme provides young people with an increased self-awareness of their behaviour, thoughts and feelings and impact on others. It provides diversion from gang activity and culture and a better social support network young people who become more able to take up opportunities. Monday: Drop-In Session Tuesday: Drop-In Session and 1:1 employability appointments Wednesday: Targeted outreach Thursday: Drop-In Session and 1:1 employability appointments Friday: Generations Session (10-11 year olds) and Pan Arts Drama Session Homework and study support available throughout the week