News & Events
Blog and pictures have been added for the October - December 2011 Workshop.
the Anno's Africa Team sets out for Kenya on October 6th to run this year's workshops which will finish on December 4th.
On Sunday June 5th, the Welsh Friends of Anno's Africa are holding a concert at beautiful Nant Gwrtheyrn on the Llyn Pemisula
This event is to celebrate the twinning of Nefyn Primary School (which Anno and his brother Ned both attended) with Spurgeons Academy in the Kibera Slum in Nairobi.
The Nefyn kids have already raised funds to sponsor the education of three Aids orphans at Spurgeons and the money raised by the concert will go a long way to making
sure that many more children can participate in the Anno's Africa arts programme.
The Pen Llyn Anno's Africa team is led by Joy Brown whose son Gareth is one of the charity's music teachers and will be returning to Kenya with the team this autumn.
Joy has worked tirelessly to make this event a huge success and has put together a wonderful team of performers to participate in the show which will be hosted by Hayley
Mills and Welsh television personality Russell Jones. The Nefyn kids will sing and we are lucky enough to have three beautiful young classical girl singers, Alaw, Elin &
Anna who have offered their talents - along with 12 year old Hero who will accompany herself on the harp. Foyles War stars Honeysuckle Weeks will read one of Annos
poems and Gareth Brown will perform with Anno's cousin George. Krysteen Savane - the Kenyan co-ordinator for the charity has come over from Nairobi to explain what these
workshops mean to the kids and to answer any questions. The hugely popular group Cowbois Celtaidd from Anglesey will round off this wonderful evening.
The raffle will be drawn by Hayley, Honeysuckle and Russell.
Tickets are £12 and will include food. The show starts at 6.30.
The charity would like to thank Mair Saunders from Nant Gwrtheyrn for all her help and enthusiasm - and a huge thanks to Joy for master minding the schools twinning and the event.
On December 9th Anno's Africa held a Gala event at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill Gate. This was to celebrate the launch of the CD of Actors recordings of Anno's poems from Who Said the Race Was Over.
It was an amazing evening, compered by Simon Amstell and directed by Jason Lawson, with readings from many of the actors from the CD as well as music, comedy and Circus.
The programme was as follows:-.
STOMP (6 members of the West End cast)
Ian Holm (poem)
Adrian Dunbar (song - unaccompanied)
John Hurt (poem)
Bruce Robinson reading (comedy)
Richard E. Grant (poem)
Allan Corduner (poem) + (music – Mozart)
Helen Lederer (comedy )
Samantha Morton (poem)
Billy Scherer & Gareth Brown (music)
George Jephson & Billy Scherer (music)
Ian Holm - (poem)
Bee speech re charity
INTERVAL & Anno's Africa Promo film
Natalia Coleville & Safia Almaghrabi (circus – arial silks & Hoop)
John Sessions (comedy
Crispian Mills (music)
Hayley Mills (poem)
Sara Pascoe (comedy)
Francesca Annis (poem)
Billy Scherer & Andrew Robertson (music)
Alice Coulthard (poem)
Anno (video of “Touched”)
Andrew Birkin (poem) and words about Anno
Johnny Borrell + Band (music)
Crispian Mills + Johnny & band sang Forever Young
Bee & Simon– farewell & thanks
Thanks to Trustee Emma Frost's brilliant organizational skills, we sold around 266 tickets for £50 a head and the guests bought many of the CD's, Anno's books, Anno's Africa T shirts and lots of Kenyan bags and Jewelry. We also sold some of the cushion covers designed and painted by the children from Valley View Schoo which we had brought back with us. By the way there are about 8 of these left so if anyone wants to go buy one (£20 each) please email Bee. We let the children keep all their other art work; paintings, woven bags, painted bracelets etc etc but we will be putting photos of them up on the site very soon,
We cleared over £11,000 which will go a long way towards funding next year's workshops.
Such was the enthusiasm expressed from the audience and from the Tabernacle that we have decided to hold another event early in the summer. We will put the date on the site as soon as it has been confirmed and will let you know how to order tickets in advance at a special rate. .
NEWS LETTER March 2010
Dear Patrons and friends of Anno’s Africa
The “new” independent charity is running well and we are making lots of plans for the rest of this year and into 2011.
As you know, we held another series of workshops in the Nairobi slums last autumn and will
be returning this year for eight weeks in October & November. The funds needed for this
next programme have now been raised, thanks to wonderfully generous donations from
Johnny Borrell and his group “Razorlight” and Olivia & Max Blond and Vicky & Mike Lane
through the L&D Blond Award Trust. However, we do need to hold some further
fundraising events so as to be able to commit to the programmes for next year.
To this end we have decided to hold an event in September just before we go back to Kenya
– which will this time take the form of an Art sale of work by Anno’s Africa friends and
supporters. So we are asking for your help, be you a well known, lesser known, or just an
aspiring artist willing to donate a small drawing or painting for us to sell at the event. The
idea is to follow the example of the Royal College of Art who hold a sale of postcards each
year where the pictures are unsigned (or rather, signed on the back) and people pay £30
for them without knowing if they were getting a Damien Hirst or a Joe Bloggs. It seems
such a splendid way to raise funds and it was suggested that we should extend the request
for contributions to any of our actor and musician friends who might like give us a drawing
or painting of their own as well. So please, if you can either offer a piece of work yourself or
know an artist who can, we would be very, very grateful. We are not sure yet where we
will hold the event but it will probably be in West London soon after everyone returns from
the summer break. We will be pleased to receive any kind of painting or drawing from post
card size up to A4 but not too much larger as we want to keep the prices the same for all of
the contributions. Please call me at the above number if you would like to help us - or email
me at beegilbert@hotmail.com. If you don’t feel able, or confident enough, to donate a work
then please do come and buy one!
For anyone who can’t help on this occasion don’t despair!!! There will be the opportunity to
lend you support later in the year when we are planning a Christmas fair and show to be
held at the Tabernacle on December 9th (Anno’s birthday). At the fair we will be selling
beautiful hand painted cloth bags and T shirts designed by the kids from the Nairobi art
group as well as woven belts, bead work and the framed photographs of the slums taken by
the photography/film class. We will also be selling local Kenyan bags and jewellery
(including Masai bracelets and necklaces) as well as some very original Christmas
decorations.
And the Variety show? Well we realize it is way too soon for anyone to commit to performing on that night but please put the date in your diary and let us know if you think you MIGHT be free at that time and would be willing to participate in the evening – singing – dancing – walking a tightrope – whatever...
The proceeds from these events will go towards a new programme we are setting up which we are calling "From Workshops to Work". This will be a project that will try and bridge the gap between the children’s arts workshops and the real world, so that young people can use their newly learnt skills in music, art drama circus etc to make themselves a living. We have some very good professional contacts in Nairobi in all of these disciplines – from the Sarakasi acrobatic and dance troupes to the Kuona Trust, who support young artists, Ginger Ink Film Productions – and of course the SAFE Theatre troupe. But what we need to do is to create a kind of “apprenticeship” situation where school leavers can improve their skills with the help and encouragement of working artists so that they have the confidence and experience to find work using their particular talents. We will also be promoting the idea of those who are interested in teaching and have been through the course, joining the autumn workshops as peer educators so that we can see which of them have the qualities they need to become part of the Anno’s Africa Kenyan team in the future. We will start implementing both of these programmes in October and hopefully we will have set up some apprentices with their mentors before we leave.
Finally, as a further part of this “Workshops to Work” idea we are combining forces with Fair Tunes, a group of young musicians and sound technicians who are offering sound recording equipment and training to young people in developing countries. This new project will be piloted in January 2011. In this programme we hope to include some of the street kids who have been rehabilitated from their glue sniffing addiction through the Three House project that an Anno’s Africa trainer is running in the Majengo slum.
Other news -
Karen Rose – our radio producer/director Trustee has been recording Anno’s poems for CD to be released at the December 9th event. Many of you already know about this project as several of our actor patrons have already recorded their poems. We will sell the CD in a box set with the limited edition of the poetry book and some of the poems will be read live by the actors at the performance on December 9th.
And we are currently in the process of editing a new promo from last year’s film footage on the workshops and will be releasing one of the songs from our Valley View School choir onto You Tube within the next few weeks - Watoto wanalia sana. (“The children they are crying”).
We are also happy to announce that One Fine Day, our German “sister” organization which was set up by Marie Steinmann and Tom Tykwer to help and support Anno’s Africa, have just released the first of their film projects. One Fine Day Films is an extension of the main foundation and has been created to help and encourage young Kenyan film-makers to develop projects and create a vibrant new film community in Nairobi. Funded from Germany, this first production, entitled “Soul Boy” had a special screening at the Berlin Film Festival and is currently showing in Nairobi, having just won the audience prize at the Gottenburg Film Festival. For the shooting of this film One Fine Day Film’s joined forces with Ginger Ink Productions who are based in Kenya. Last year they held a two week scriptwriting course for promising young writers in Nairobi which ran concurrently with the Anno’s Africa kids workshops. They will be will be holding a more extensive “Film workshop” this August for 60 Kenyan students – 10 for each of the 6 aspects of film-making (writing, producing, camera, technical etc).
The One Fine Day Foundation is working in close partnership with Anno’s Africa and is now funding the Saturday club workshops throughout the year from funds raised last November at an exhibition in Berlin of the slum kids’ art work from 2008.
We are so delighted about this collaboration as it was born from Marie heading the visual Art programme for us and then Tom deciding that he too wanted to be part of the Anno’s Africa adventure.
So -- a huge thank you to everyone who has been part of all of these projects – and our grateful thanks to you, our friends and donors who have made it all possible by your generosity. We so appreciate and value your continued support and enthusiasm.
Love from Bee and the Anno’s Africa team…
NEWS LETTER September 2009
Anno's Africa held a giant, star-studded party on Sunday, 27th September at the 20th Century Theatre in West London to celebrate the launch of its new, autonomous charity status.
In the afternoon there was a family event with workshops in mask making, circus arts and dance for the children, and homemade fairground games for all to play, with prizes at the end of the afternoon for the highest scorers.
In the evening we hosted an exclusive live concert for the charity, starring Kula Shaker, Johnny Borrell from Razorlight and Jane Birkin - with Jane and Johnny singing a duet of the famous Serge Gainsbourg song, "Je suis venue te dire que je m'en vais". Guests were met outside by stilt walkers and in the foyer watched musical performances by 12 year old Hero on the harp and Rona on the fiddle and inside, the packed house enjoyed delicious canapes prepared by Sven, a young chef from the Ritz hotel, and got competitive on the fairground games in between performances to try and win some of the marvellous prizes our friends and patrons had so kindly donated.
At the end of the evening, we held an auction for a prize donated by our patron Alan Rickman, of a visit to the set of the final Harry Potter film, for two adults and two children, escorted by Alan himself. Everybody wanted it, only one could win....
We raised a goodly sum of money and everyone had a wonderful time, and we thank all those who attended, helped or donated prizes or their time.
Film clips of the concert will be posted on youtube as soon as they have been edited, and photos will be appear on this page very soon...."
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