Our Headliners London team developed and delivered a Safe Spaces project working with young people from Stoke Newington School.

Our Safe Spaces programmes enables young people from different backgrounds to come together in a Safe Space to discuss the issues that matter to them.

The team supported 12 young people who chose to focus on ​the education system, hidden racism and behaviour management.

Through photography, group discussion and interviews, the young people shared their experiences and opinions with one another. They built trust and friendships across different year groups and identified that they shared many of the same concerns, issues and views.

Mental health and wellbeing were also topics that the young people focused on as part of our Safe Spaces project. The Headliners team worked with the young people to share calming tools and techniques to better understand themselves, create awareness of different viewpoints and how to de-escalate situations.

​The young people then filmed and interviewed each other to share what they had learnt from the project which increased their practical skills as well as their confidence.

Here is their film

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The young people discussed and tackled some really interesting topics including gender disparity which also discussed as they were issues that mattered to the young people. The young people had concerns around how the school was run and dealt with behavioural issues with gender disparity - eg some boys were given hall passes to mitigate their behaviour, but girls were shunned for asking for similar passes to use the toilets whilst on their periods etc. Following the project, one of the young people, put a petition forward to the school to change the policy, allowing girls more access to the bathrooms. 

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The young people also shared their reflections from the project activities and these included a few quotes:

• “I’ve learnt how to deal with my teachers instead of getting angry”
• “I think about things differently”
• “I can share my opinions”
• “I now know how to conduct myself”
• “I used to be really shy and didn’t have confidence in my words, I couldn’t speak on camera but now I’m really confident”

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Acknowledgements and Thanks

Headliners (UK) would like to thank Stoke Newington School for hosting us and to the generous support of the Old Street Partnership Community Pot for supporting this activity.