March Newsletter
March 2022 newsletter
Dear Friends,
Spring is officially here! With the equinox ushering in longer, warmer days, Little Green Pig HQ is alive with activity as we look forward to a bustling agenda over coming months. Plans for our takeover weekend at Brighton Festival’s Riwaq stage on 21 & 22 May are taking shape and we couldn’t be more delighted to integrate our programme into such an inspiring space. Identified by guest co-director Marwa Al Sabouni as a threshold for exchange; it will be a semi-open space where the landscape of the seafront merges with the bustle of workshops and poetry readings, where generations can mingle and children and young people can explore their creative potential. And with that in mind, we’re sounding the klaxon, beating the drum and raising Little Green Pig’s Young Writer’s Collective flag for new recruits to join our festival line-up….
Call out for aspiring young scribes, speakers and wordsmiths - Amplifying Amplified
Amplified gives a platform to young people with a message or story to share, celebrating their unique perspectives and personalities. We’re really keen to hear from 13 - 18 year olds who have an interest in developing writing and public speaking skills, and a willingness to commit to two weekends of intensive workshops leading up to the main event on Sunday 22nd May at 2.30pm. You’ll work with professional writers and mentors who will help tease out your highly personal narratives and build your confidence to connect with an audience as a storyteller, advocate or artist; whatever your motivation may be to take to a stage and have your voice heard.
If you are, or know of a young person who you think would be interested in participating, please follow this link which takes you through to an application form and gives all the information you need to know. You’ll test your personal strengths and push your comfort zones but be part of a hugely rewarding experience, now a regular feature of Brighton Festival and cited by last year’s guest director, Lemn Sissay, as his highlight of 2021’s programme. For a taste of what to expect, check out this short video following last year’s participants on their Amplified journey or watch the full event here, presented by MC Adam Kammerling.
Letters to the Earth at Third Thursdays
Dusk on 17th March saw Little Green Pig club members, parents, carers, workshop leaders, volunteers and staff gather on Gardner Street, Brighton, to view the Third Thursdays installation gracing the shop windows of Simon Webster Hair and Wideye body care. An initiative that invites artists of all genres to share their work in city centre locations, Third Thursday’s theme for March focused on the environment and club members embraced this through the global campaign, Letters to the Earth.
In collaboration with Culture Declares Emergency, Letters to the Earth is a response to the climate and ecological crisis that invites everybody; young and old, from all corners of the world and walks of life, to articulate their feelings through a personalised message that can collectively perform as a call to environmental action.
Over recent weeks club members have been working on their letters that included poems and pictures, writing heartfelt missives to Mother Earth, the sea, forests, favourite animals and a host of flora and fauna, expressing their love, fears and hopes for the future of the planet. The collection of work is beyond moving and though it’s a good fifteen minute watch, we’d urge you to grab a cuppa and enjoy it to its full.
We’ll be sharing more of the children’s work on our social channels and through local partners but would like to leave you with this thought provoking and touching tribute that’s sure to raise a lump…
Dear beloved mother earth,
I thank you more than just my birth,
I thank you for life, I thank you for death…I thank you for my lifelong breath,
I thank you happy, I thank you sad, I thank you really, really bad,
I thank you for ocean and for sea, I thank you for you and me,
I thank you 1,2,3,4, I thank you way way more,
I thank you for nice and love, I thank you for the birds and the GODLY sent dove…
I thank you for being super hot, sometimes like a boiling pot,
I thank you for sun and moon…and for the flowers in spring that beautifully bloom,
I thank you for the joyous smile, the smile the size of the grand river Nile,
I thank you for so much and thats what I say,
I thank you for the sea’s golden bay,
I’m sorry for plastic and all that junk…that in our dear ocean has sadly sunk,
I’m sorry for the humans who’ve cut you with blade, for that I’m sorry I couldn’t have paid.
I’m sorry for all of our anger… Of course because of all this you really must Banger,
I’m sorry for all the rage, how we used trees for one single page…
So mother dear earth, you can see I value you more than my birth, so I have to for now say to you bye…
And off to change the world from BAD TO GOOD DO I FLY!
From Lexi, Thursday Club
Wishing you all the joys of a flourishing springtime, Ramadan Mubarak, joyous Passover and a happy Easter, we look forward to checking in next month.