Community Programmers 2022
We piloted a Community Programmers project in 2020 that invited women in Thanet to discuss over a meal issues of importance to them. In these facilitated sessions the women had the opportunity to meet new people from their local community, hear from speakers of interest such as Sharon Goodyer, Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet; Helen Whitehead, Labour Councillor. The group was largely made up of women who had not previously engaged in Power of Women’s programme and they were brought together also to help Power of Women respond to the needs of our locality. Through these discussions the group came to the following priorities for artists to address when making submissions for POW Festival 2021. They wanted to see entries that:
nurture both the community and the individual; nourishing mind, body and soul.
bring the community together with events that are relate-able and accessible to the diversity of Thanet residents.
use community spaces; libraries, schools and community halls - bringing POW to the people!
These priorities were presented at Power of Women’s 2020 open forum discussion, introducing the ideas for the 2021 festival to artists, community groups and individuals.
Photography by Kanndiss Riley
In 2021 and 2022 we were unsuccessful in obtaining funding to continue the Community Programmers group as in the pilot. We carved out a budget to run 4 sessions in 2021 for the Community Programmers to evaluate whether we had met the goals they had set us and to feedback on the content of the festival. The feedback was largely positive.
In 2022 we retained one member of the original Community Programmers and did targeted recruiting to community groups to recruit new members to the group for 4 sessions to run similarly to 2021. Over 4 sessions the group of 7 people met to discuss Thanet community engagement in local activities. Each session we unpacked the diverse landscape of Thanet and looked at which mediums would interest the various demographics of Thanet.
Photography by Kanndiss Riley
