Women Reflecting on Women, are we there yet?

Skippko Arts Team from Holbeck, South Leeds, secures National Lottery support

We are really happy to advise that Leeds-based Skippko Arts Team, has received a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £51,000 for an exciting heritage project. The project “Women reflecting on women” has been two and half years in the making and will bring together 13 communities from across Leeds as we research and tell the stories of women from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Women who were a vital part of the movement for suffrage but, whose stories are rarely told. Our plans, and those of the 13 communities, will now become a reality and made possible by money raised by National Lottery players and will focus on the past and present-day heritage of women from Leeds.

With support through The National Lottery Heritage Fund, we will work for twelve months with the communities who have been a vital part in developing the programme. The project will inspire people to examine their own local past heritage, learn new skills and expertise and develop confidence in undertaking heritage work  and, we will support them so they continue their work after the project has finished.

Skippko is an arts organisation that has been working across Leeds, and the region it serves, since October 1988. It is an arts organisation that works with communities (and the diversity that exists within these communities) to create work that brings people together and lifts their confidence. The project will be delivered in collaboration with Leeds Libraries, Leeds Museums, Leeds University, Feminist Archives North and British Newspaper Archives.

Quotes

Commenting on the award, Cath Brooke, Arts Programme Manager said: “We are thrilled to have received this support thanks to National Lottery players and are confident the project will bring communities together; enabling the lives of ordinary people in Leeds to be celebrated, marked and remembered.”

Notes to editors

About Skippko

Skippko is an arts organisation based in Holbeck, South Leeds. It is a part of the arts@leeds funding portfolio for the city of Leeds and has been continuously creating arts projects directly engaging with communities across Leeds since its inception in October 1988.

This is the third project undertaken with support from Heritage Lottery Fund, the previous being [1] Under One Roof and [2] Hats Off.

Skippko is currently delivering [a] an extensive community photography project in Holbeck, [b] a collaboration with Leeds Museums & Galleries in Armley, [c] a collaboration with M & S Company Archive and, [d] an exhibition of Skippko’s 30 years of work is being exhibited in Leeds Town Hall.

Quote from Bryony Redwood-Turner from one of our partner organisations Holbeck Elderly Aid “We have seen that Skippko’s creative approach is a fantastic way of engaging with our members who may lack confidence in their own abilities.  We have also seen that through creatively working with Skippko our clients are able to explore, interpret and share their own experiences in new ways.”

About The National Lottery Heritage Fund

Using money raised by the National Lottery, we Inspire, lead and resource the UK’s heritage to create positive and lasting change for people and communities, now and in the future. www.heritagefund.org.uk.

Follow @HeritageFundUK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLotteryHeritageFund