Launched in 2023, this programme has been designed to support and uplift the work of community-based initiatives in Waltham Forest. In the first phase of the programme, we’re excited to announce that four local groups have been selected for a year-long residency and will be provided with space, funding and resources to support their work.
Now in Residency
Stories & Supper
Founded in Waltham Forest in 2017, Stories & Supper create spaces of welcome and encounter where refugees and people seeking asylum can come together with local residents over food, stories and gardening. Stories & Supper host public events, such as supper clubs, story cafes and festival pop-ups. They also lead school workshops and have published two books.
“We are delighted that Stories & Supper has been given the opportunity of a residency at the wonderful William Morris Gallery. We share Morris’s commitment to fellowship, creativity, social justice and the environment, and we’re looking forward to exploring his work together. It is so important that marginalised communities, such as refugees and people seeking asylum, feel welcomed into public spaces like this, at a time when hostility towards them is increasing.” Helen Taylor, Director, Stories & Supper.
Read about Stories and Supper’s recent Cookery Video project (and watch the videos!) HERE
WalthamScribe
WalthamScribe is a creative writing group that explores different forms of storytelling in guided workshop sessions around Waltham Forest. This includes poetry, graphic novels, prose-writing and more. The group is open to all adults 18+, who would like to try some narrative self-expression within a friendly, safe and inclusive community. No writing or drawing experience is necessary
“We are thrilled to be a part of the William Morris Gallery Community Residency Programme! It’s a fantastic opportunity for our group of local storytellers and artists to dig into the work of William Morris as a visionary thinker and writer. We are looking forward to holding creative-writing and illustration workshops that explore how his far-reaching ideas still resonate in our twenty-first-century lives.”
Waltham Forest Twinning Association
An organisation rooted in both the Waltham Forest Caribbean community and strongly connected via its partners throughout the UK and the Caribbean, the Waltham Forest Twinning Association (WFTA) has developed over 50 fundraising and community events to date, enjoyed by its largely Caribbean member network.
With a mission to promote friendship, information exchange and mutual understanding, the WFTA have developed projects and activities that not only provide information for self-development but also support and provide room for growth in cultural and heritage awareness. Its recent Creative Writing Project culminated in the publication of an anthology of prose and poems with artwork from a local school and the WFTA’s own artists.
“Being part of the Residency scheme will provide the grounding that we need and the unique opportunity to grow the Twinning Association within the inspiring surroundings of the William Morris Gallery.” Mervin Caesar-John, Chair.
Waltham Forest Parent Forum
We asked Waltham Forest Parent Forum to share a little about the work that they do:
“We are all parents or carers of children and young people with SEND aged 0-25, all passionate about improving our young people’s lives. We use the lived experience of our families to feedback to decision makers so that improvements can be made to the services our children, young people and we, as families, access.
We also offer training and signposting to parent carers so they can be empowered in navigating the SEND system and lots of opportunities for peer support. We also work with other local providers to enable them to develop inclusive activities and we run a football club and a Lego club for our families.”