At the end of last year we went to see the Leeds Afro-Latino Group – they’ve been working with Basis Project Organisational Development Officer, Mani Thapa, to try to access funding.

Run by Sam Miezi, the group has music and 3-D animation studios in a building renovated entirely by volunteers.

They set up as a Community Interest Company (CIC) in 2006 but found that many people, including some funders, didn’t know what a CIC is and therefore didn’t want to give funding. So, they’re now a registered charity.

They told us that they wanted to develop training programmes for local young people in music and animation.

And, the good news is… they’ve now been given a grant!

Jose, Filipe and Sam from Leeds Afro-Latino Group 

Mani takes up the story:

The grant from Leeds Community Foundation’s Grassroot Grants is meant to help set up a series of digital music making workshop for 17-35 years old disadvantaged young adults which will provide the opportunity to learn basics of music production. It aims to target disadvantaged people in providing training covering all aspects of digital music production from development in song writing, music beat making, singing, music editing, recording and music video production.

The project will not only provide a safe place to promote interaction between different groups but will also build up people’s skills and confidence. Participants will learn an array of exciting creative skills to unlock their creative talent; providing a huge impact on their personal development by enriching their lives and accumulating practical hands-on experience.

This project will also help boost their confidence and develop social skills, such as active listening and communication, understanding of other people’s perspective, respecting each other, working in teams, creativity and other useful working habits etc.

We hope to be able to report back on their progress later in the year.