I was thrilled to see that Make It in Brixton reached out to Black Thrive when they did. When first thinking of a brand design for Black Thrive, I saw The Brixton Project face logo somewhere in the Arcade (now called Brixton Village, I think) some time ago. I thought it was very clever and had a “why didn’t I think of that?” moment realising the letter “B” was used for eyes and the” P” for a mouth. If I had done that for Black Thrive, the “T”, as a mouth, would have made the “face” look like it’s chewing something, possibly… what’s that got to do with Black Mental Health? I threw the regret away and mused further how I could make Black Thrive a brand that people recognised.
Luckily enough, my role no longer requires me to think creatively, not in the visual sense at least, now as an engagement officer, I’m charged with the duty of connecting the dots linking Black communities to conversations. Much like the remit of Make It in Brixton, Black Thrive aims to impact strategies around jobs and employment across the borough so that more Black people are involved in the reshaping of Lambeth. We value the experiences of individuals and use this to inform our work. Just before covid arrived, the word “co-production” was on the lips of every service provider and commissioner in our borough (maybe even the country). It’s seen as the new way of working. At the Black Thrive office, we all looked at each other puzzled, “isn’t this the only way to work when dealing with social and community issues?” we asked ourselves, but then the lockdown came, and for a moment, the world went quiet.
I, myself, became very worried about my role. Black Thrive had started to build a reputation for creating events and activities which the community found edifying. In a world where we could no longer come together, how could we keep this going? If Covid had happened before the invention of the internet, I honestly believe that the devastation it has caused would have been ten times worst. We launched a weekly online check-in forum for the community in Lambeth, but it ended being used by Black people from communities outside our city. People in Manchester, Birmingham and Salford saw the flyer online and jumped into our zoom Friday check-ins. They were very thankful, and we received some lovely messages from individuals who looked forward to that regular Friday meet up. In some sense, it was a fail; the people of Lambeth did not engage in the numbers we hoped for, but we left every Friday meeting feeling a sense of achievement as we connected with some people and being together made us all feel better.
As the lockdown effects worsened, news of people dying and an unhelpful government telling people to fight the invisible made the period even more terrifying.
I’m glad to hear that people embraced forgotten crafts and skills like drawing to help them cope and express themselves and how they feel. Black Thrive and Black communities have understood the value of practices like art therapy for some time. I believe covid has helped others to discover the importance of these types of methods. I think now, people who argue for art therapy or baking therapy or dog walk therapy will no longer be seen as strange or irregular. Covid levelled the playing field as we stopped judging each other on how we cope or suggested coping mechanisms; we just hoped that when the dust settled, we all managed to see a time when we could be together again.
