Chair of Trustees, Richard McLean, reflects on our year:
"Collecting our work into this one document is always an incredible moment of reflection and optimism - that such a small core team and so many dedicated colleagues can stimulate so much activity. We hope you enjoy browsing the work that CCI has undertaken in our last financial year (August 2021 to July 2022). Huge thanks again to all our supporters and partners.
Whenever I’m close to what CCI does, I come away inspired, and when I look back over the year, they provide many personal highlights. Here are a few of the moments that particularly stood out for me:
- Seeing the Fantastical Forest grow and grow – a beautiful and expanding collective artwork that prompts the imagination and fosters that connectedness with nature that is so important for our wellbeing. The Forest started as a one-off and – thanks to generous sponsorship from Software Acumen – we were able to expand it this year, stretching it across multiple months and settings. And now we’re planning for it to continue to develop every year.
- Listening to the charity present some of its work at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Art Craft and Design in Education, where they shared a child’s poem and the sound of a ladybird crawling along a leaf, reminding us of children’s extraordinary creativity and nature’s power to amaze.
- Hearing that the charity, together with our partners, had been successful in their funding application to UKRI (the UK Research and Innovation Council) to carry out a capacity-building programme to support primary schools tackling health inequalities and seed local voluntary artscapers in communities. Watching this ‘branching out’ project then develop from an idea to reality brought me joy and hope.
- Watching the video of three children talk so fluently about the value of artscaping at another Westminster APPG - Learning isn’t sitting in the classroom learning your 12 x 12, learning is discovery, finding out new things.
- Seeing an early version of the companionship compass (the final version is on page 6 of the report) , which was co-created with children and which beautifully encapsulates how to be with each other in the worldThe charity’s amazing work on a project related to the North East Cambridge development, which involves artscaping and imagining future spaces with students from a local primary school and secondary school, highlighted for me the benefit of listening to children in projects where their voices may not often be heard.
- Reading the inspiring Call for Being Together Differently, which is the most creative and imaginative project evaluation that I’ve ever seen.'
Click here to read the 2021-22 Review of Year
