Market Club 20/02/2011

Lake of Stars are pleased to announce that our first Market Club event last Sunday was a huge success. 

Many market stalls turned up to sell everything from clothing to CD’s to custom-made bowls. Fenchurch, Fabric and Frockney Rebel all set up stalls, and those were only the ones that begin with ‘F’.

 

The event officially got underway as our compere Ray took to the stage to introduce Mikel and George. At only 15 and 14 respectively, they were recommended by the English Table Tennis Association to give a table tennis demo and show the attendees how it’s done. 

We managed to speak to the boys after their losing to their opponents, albeit with mini-bats, to get the lowdown on how they got involved with table tennis. They’ve only been playing for a couple of years and were pretty inexperienced in playing with tiny bats.

 Our first live act of the day was Sam Sallon who gave the audience a helping of his plaintive acoustic sound and in the end was encouraged to play an encore by the enthusiastic crowd. We spoke to Sam afterwards and he even performed a song for us, making it the very first Market Club Session track:

After some further table tennis action, Scubaroots stepped up to play their laid back reggae on a Sunday afternoon. 

Their music perfectly suited the atmosphere but we were lucky enough to get an interview with them later and they told us that they have been known to play a lot heavier material and their album Babylon Pharmacy even contains some Drum ‘n’ Bass. Check out our interview with them below:

 The final stage of the day was to play the ‘Round-the-Table’ game umpired by the Young Offender’s Institute clubnight. The rules are simple. Each participant gets a bat and two wristbands. When running around the table every time they lose a point, they lose a wristband until only one player remains. The game continued this way for the rest of the night whilst the DJ’s played on.

By the end of the day, many of the stalls had made a great profit from Market Club and we spoke to some of them to see how their day had gone:

If you missed out on the event, worry not, Market Club will return next month on March 20^th. Click here for the event:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192869400736380

Angaza Afrika - African Art Now

“Africa is as much a global phenomenon as a continent.” Chris Spring

Untitled - Mohamed Omer Bushara - 2008

We are delighted to be working with Chris Spring from the British Museum to bring some images from his excellent book on African contemporary art to our monthly events.

 

Buy the book from Amazon and 'Look inside the book'

Find out more abour Chris Spring
'Author Chris Spring, curator of the African galleries at the British Museum, has selected 60 thoughtful and creative contemporary artists working now not only in Africa, but also Europe and North and South America, including the Caribbean. Their work challenges our preconceived notions of Africa and its art on many levels'.

Check the October Gallery for information and images from their exhibition

Angaza Afrika: African Art Now by Chris Spring, published by Laurence King (paperback, 350 colour illustrations, 336 pages ISBN 13: 978-1-85669-548-0).

Mary's Meals

A mug of porridge offers a simple solution

A little boy sits on a wooden bench at the front of the class, pencil in hand, brow furrowed in concentration, a plastic mug hanging on a piece of string around his neck.

Peter lives in Mangochi in Malawi, just a few miles from the site of last year's Lake of Stars festival.

He is one of the 500,000 children around the world who now receive a daily meal in their place of education from Mary's Meals, a charity which believes that school feeding can offer a simple solution to the problems of hunger and poverty.

A meal a day

Mary’s Meals’ aim is straight forward – to provide a daily meal in school for children who are growing up in poverty, and through this to encourage them to get an education.

In Malawi, that food is likuni phala, a maize-based porridge developed by nutritionists. The mug of porridge draws the children to the classroom each day, and the education they gain there offers them the best chance of escaping poverty in the future.

While funding for Mary's Meals comes mostly from the UK, its projects in Malawi are managed by members of the local community and staffed by Malawian volunteers. Because resources such as ingredients and fuel are supplied by Malawian businesses and small holders, the local economy also benefits.

The charity values support from organisations such as the Lake of Stars festival, which hosted a school feeding demonstration last year, and from British musicians with links to Malawi, including Colin MacIntyre and Annie Lennox - who both recently visited projects.

School kitchens

"The kitchen is the heart of a school, as Andrew Parker, a project worker, explains: “A typical kitchen smells strongly of porridge,” he says. “It is a lovely place to be, especially when you meet the volunteers.”

Mary’s Meals kitchens are equipped with utensils and fuel-efficient cooking stoves, as well as a plastic mug for each child. The programme is feeding about 14 per cent of the school-children in Malawi, a country where poverty is widespread.

It is doing what it can to help, but there are still many thousands of hungry children, and a long waiting list of schools who have asked for support.

Little Peter carries his porridge mug on a piece of string around his neck because he knows it will be filled every day – but he still wants to make absolutely sure he won’t miss out.

"When I was seven, I left school because there was no food in my village. I was hungry all the time, so I stopped coming because I had no energy to walk to school. I came back when Mary's Meals was introduced. It gives us energy to learn and walk home."

Sustainability

Once Mary's Meals starts operating at a school, it makes a commitment to provide meals for as long as they are needed, if funding allows. It works with governments to complement national school feeding policy and capacity and always has a strategy to withdraw in the long term, once the community or economy is in a position to be self-sufficient.

While Mary's Meals' view is a long term one, its aim is to create a generation of skilled and educated young people who will be in a position to break the cycle of poverty and build a bright, sustainable future for themselves and their communities.

When Mary's Meals sets up at a new school in Malawi it builds the kitchen, then holds a 'handover ceremony' at which the keys are presented to local community leaders.

Porridge

At Namiwawa school, the arrival of the truck carrying Mary’s Meals supplies is always a cause for excitement. When the children spot it they shout “Phala!” which means “Porridge!”

There are children across Malawi, and the world, who are every bit as hungry as Peter was before school feeding started. We hope that the Mary’s Meals delivery truck could be pulling into more of their schools soon too.

• Mary's Meals welcomes financial and in kind support. You can help by making a donation, fundraising, volunteering or donating second-hand school bags and writing equipment to our backpack project. Find out more at www.marysmeals.org or call 0800 6981212.

Watch friend of the festival and Mary's Meals ambassador Colin MacIntyre in this video about his recent trip.

Catch Colin live in London next week at The Wheelbarrow, Camden, London

http://www.facebook.com/colinmacintyremull#!/event.php?eid=159544200762302

Pump Aid

Lake of Stars have worked closely with a number of charities over the past few years and now we would like to introduce you to Pump Aid. They work to combat the global water and sanitation crisis. With the help of their innovative, cost effective and community-centred technology they establish sustainable supplies of clean water and safer sanitation provisions. Their work improves health and supports the local agriculture and economies in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Many areas in Africa are in desperate need for access to clean water for drinking, water for irrigation, toilets with hygiene and nutrition. Using simple but effective technology, Pump Aid builds special water pumps, called Elephant Pumps, that can be maintained by poor rural communities without any assistance. The local community comes together to assist in the building process, providing materials such as bricks, sand, stones and unskilled labour.

 The Elephant Pump can also supply water for irrigating nutrition gardens where communities can grow crops to improve their diet and even grown surplus crops to sell to bring much needed cash into the household. The recent addition to Pump Aid's work is the Elephant Toilet. The toilets use just one bag of cement in their construction along with cast-off materials such as ball point pens and plastic bottles. A naturally occurring local plant with antiseptic properties is grown outside each toilet and users pick a leaf to use as soap to wash their hands with after every visit.

For more info on Pump Aid please click here.

Introducing: The MicroLoan Foundation

What we do

The MicroLoan Foundation transforms the lives of some of the poorest women in Africa.

We work with women across Malawi, Zambia and Namibia, helping women to help themselves, changing their lives for the better.

We provide them with small loans and essential business training so they can start up their own business, working themselves out of poverty and live independent of aid.

Why did we get involved with Lake of Stars?

From the charity’s perspective, letting more people know about our work at MicroLoan – our different approach – is absolutely vital for our growth. Lake of Stars help us reach young people who care about helping Africa develop and helping Africans become self-sufficient, away from aid hand outs. Being able to take people out to our projects, so they can see first hand how our ‘bottom-up’ approach working in action often inspires them to spread the word.

Lake of Stars have generously chosen MiroLoan has an adopted charity over the years. We hope this continues.

Being associated with the event over the last few years has meant we have really benefited from all the positive press about Lake of Stars. The nature of the festival means that people who wouldn’t ordinarily come and find us online do so because of our partnership and exposure on publicity materials.

How important do you feel culture and the arts is in overall development mix?

Our work at MicroLoan is all about creating sustainable communities. Empowering women to start their own small businesses doesn’t just benefit them, it benefits everyone around them that they serve. For example, our solar power entrepreneurs http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/Case_Studies/solar_women have brought much needed electricity to their village which really does improve the standard of living.

Just as access to commodities is essential to the community, so are the arts. In our work, we find the best stories come out of the closest communities. Arts and culture help bring communities together and this really is the first step on the ladder away from poverty.

It’s easy for anyone that visits Malawi to see, that music, arts and community culture are an unbelievably strong force for good.

What some of the women we help say:

‘MicroLoan enables us to be self-reliant and not just on the receiving end of aid like goalkeepers’

‘We can now go into a bank freely and without embarrassment’

‘Before I started with MicroLoan, my family had only one meal a day and the children were often hungry. Now I can afford it, they usually eat three meals a day’

‘I enjoy being a member of my group and I have learnt a lot from other women about how to run a business’

Videos

You can hear from some of the women we help here http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/Case_Studies/Video

Market Club is here...

Market Club



Market Club is a new kind of free event for the leading East London Arts Centre that will brighten up your Sundays.

The finest festival team in the world are kicking off the New Year moving their Wednesday night sessions to monthly Sunday celebrations of art, music, film, markets and Olympic sports. Live music comes from rising indie-folk star Sam Sallon plus reggae/dub outfit Scubaroots with DJ sets from Fabric’s Ali B, Jamie A, Kid Blue and Young Offenders.

Sundays in Shoreditch are alive from Brick Lane, Spitalfields and Columbia Rd markets – get indoors with the Market Club’s mini market selling everything from books to music to a sample sale from Fenchurch.


Market Club will have Olympic sport tasters each month kicking off with table tennis in February. There will be a demonstration and training by professionals then a chance for everyone to join in. Ping Pong veterans, the Young Offenders Institute, will be there to help get things going using their unique round robin game. Fencing and indoor rowing are planned for March and April dates.

Scrubaroots

One of Bristol's hottest club secrets. At its core, the group is a nine piece live funk, ska, drum and bass act that on occasion swells to include gospel choirs, record geek DJs, Latin percussion outfits and a ton of other party-kinds up for a party. The band forged on the South West college circuit and now has an ardent following here in Bristol, and wherever they have gigged around the country. Pumping out quality new material at a alarming rate, the band have already put out one EP, launched from it, put on too many gigs to mention and have a second album in the works (out 2009).

Expect high energy, disciplined and soulful music that nods to the best kinds breakbeat, funk, reggae and roots influences you can imagine.
Taste beyond their years this is killer stuff.



Sam Sallon

Sam Sallon’s debut album, One For The Road, is set for release in 2011. One For The Road features guest performances from some of Sam’s favourite artists including Kami Thompson and Neil Cowley. The album was lovingly produced by David Watson at Metropolis Studios and mixed by Jim Lowe.

Sam has paid his dues and earned his live reputation on tour with the likes of Pete Doherty, Nouvelle Vague, Dot Allison, Rodrigo y Gabriela and Lyle.



Fenchurch

London 1999, with a new century just around the corner. The world is your oyster. You're young, you think differently, your world is a bright place where all the sounds, colours and styles merge in a delicious mix, which is forever evolving. Create your own brand, name it after the place where you skate and hang out with your friends. Bottle that positive creative vibe, and give it to world. This is exactly what we did. Fenchurch. Born in London, at home everywhere.



Website: www.fenchurch.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FenchurchFamily
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fenchurchfamily

Frockney Rebel

Frockney Rebel Vintage is our brand new vintage retailer in the heart of London's East End. We offer something different from the rest of the vintage stores across London.



Website: http://frockneyrebelvintage.com/
Blog: http://frockneyrebelvintage.blogspot.com/

Zionly Art

African arts and crafts such as wood carvings, corries, djembes.

Bot i Lam

Ethical fashion brand from by Cameroonian British designer. Bot I Lam revisits the classic traditional cuts for a timeless vintage look. Xaverie Bakemhe the designer who featured on CNN last year has a huge belief in giving back to ethical fashion and the growth in African Fashion globally.



Website: www.botilam.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bot-i-Lam/152259668139018

Book Bus

The Book Bus Foundation was founded in 2007 by Tom Maschler with the aim of spreading literacy and the joy of reading to children in Zambia. The Book Bus now operates in Malawi and Ecuador as well as Zambia and the people and connections that we have made along the way have swelled the Book Foundation into a dynamic and international organisation.



Website: www.thebookbus.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51877102976
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thebookbus

Festival Faces

'Festival Faces’ is a free training course for young people who live, work or study in Tower Hamlets and want to volunteer at London festivals and events this summer.

Website: http://www.theatre-venture.org/festival-faces
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Festival-Faces/174814849221256
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FestivalFaces

Mary’s Meals

Mary’s Meals is an international movement to set up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. Mary’s Meals provides daily meals in school for over 450,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Use the buttons below to find out more about Mary’s Meals. Mary’s Meals began in 2002 as a one-off school feeding programme by Scottish International Relief. Today in 2011 Mary’s Meals feeds over 450,000 children daily.



Website: www.marysmeals.org.uk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/marysmeals
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Marysmeals

The Book Bus

One of the things you’ll notice the most in Malawi is children…everywhere. About 47% of the population is under the age of 15. Malawi is the 13th poorest country in the world with an average literacy rate of just 63%. Politically stable and conflict-free the country became a multi-party democracy in 1995. Free primary education for all children was established by the government, which improved attendance rates but class sizes increased dramatically. Classes sometimes number 100 pupils. Books are seriously lacking. This year vinspired Lake of Stars has been proud to work with the Book Bus; a charity which addresses all of these issues. Both volunteers and artists, including the Noisettes and Get Cape Wear Cape Fly took a trip on the Lake of Stars visit to see what the Book Bus was getting up to during the festival. 

What they do: The Book Bus believes that every child should have the opportunity to discover the hidden treasures that books contain. Their aim is to reveal the value of literacy by instilling a lifelong love of reading in young children. Using the spoken word, artwork, puppet-making and a host of other media, our volunteers bring to life the worlds within storybooks. The Book Bus provides a mobile service and actively promotes literacy to underprivileged communities in Malawi. There's no doubt that stories can make a difference to children's lives and with story tellers onboard, the Book Bus can help maintain the link between local society and its own stories as well as providing inspiration with new stories from afar. The bus is supported by a crew of enthusiastic volunteers, local teachers, story tellers, musicians and artists, all of whom were present on site providing activities.

We had a chat with Get Cape Wear Cape Fly to see what they thought about the day...

Why are you at the BookBus today?

We've come out to the bookbus today to see firsthand the work that the volunteers are doing with the project and what the response it gets from the local communities. It's absolutely blown us away how positive the whole experience has been. The kids from the village have all come down, voluntarily to pick up books, to read or to be read to. There seems to be a real spirit here that would be hard to find anywhere else.

What has been your favourite part?

Seeing how much the kids really want to learn to read and to know more about everything. It was amazing to see Andy (our drummer) reading with some kids on the bus. It was something as simple as a football annual and pointing out on a globe where the differant players are from. The children had a genuine interest and you could see the enjoyment in their faces . These kids want to learn and they want to better themselves whether it be from reading or from just meeting people and talking. It really was an event that brought alot of people from the village together and of course it was for such a positive thing for us too.

From your experiences today, how do you feel that vinspired Lake of Stars has helped increase awareness of the BookBus?

I think that the festival being where it is has really spread awareness about these kind of ongoing projects. The festival gives people the chance to really see the positive aspects of the charity/volunteer work that goes on. On a resort that I'm presuming holiday makers would normally hole up in for their stay, the festival has brought people here and encouraged them to go out and to see the village, meet the people and see how the little things we can do to help them can really really help to enhance the lives of others. It's definitely made us all think about how we approach our days. We've been thinking a lot about how positive and energetic the kids are here when by western standards, they seem to have very little. We want to try and continue to support these projects ourselves. 

For More Info on The Book Bus please click here.