Hackney girl guides learn tools to empower them to speak out

Hackney girl guides took part in a series of creative workshops at the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival last Friday [March 7].

Members of 5th Hackney Senior Section took part in the girl-only project along with East London arts organisation Artsadmin. They looked at art, campaigning, spoken word poetry, positive female role models and MCing as ways to assert opinions on the issues that matter to them.

The group, who meet at the Hackney Youth Hub in Forest Road, Dalston took part in the workshops during February half term and worked with two leading female artists – Phoebe Davies and Shay D.

The participants and artists also put together a performance piece from their work, which was performed live at the WOW Festival at the Southbank Centre London.

Kheianna Browne, 15, said: “This project has given me the confidence to be really proud of who I am, proud to be myself. I have enjoyed every bit of it.”

Phoebe Davies, the contemporary artist who conceived the project said “Working with Girlguiding gave myself and rapper Shay D the chance to explore what voices women hear day to day and how they are able to use their own voices to amplify and articulate or critique and comment upon this.”