Stockport

In Stockport Tandem Theatre partnered with Make a Difference and Stockport Life Leisure who co-run a young women’s group.

The group aims to build the wellbeing, confidence and self-esteem of young women from Stockport and hosts a variety of activities such as sports, trips and arts and crafts. The Game Changers programme fitted perfectly and the young women brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the project. They were able to channel this into producing some beautiful poetry and a fantastic dance to perform at the Bazaar. The group’s youth worker, was absolutely astounded by the way the young people engaged in the project,

“Through this project, we had a group of girls have the confidence to go to a young persons’ Question Time and ask some difficult questions to some high up people in the council and challenge their response.” Louise Clark, Salford Youth Service Youth Worker.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

The group received guided tours at Archives + at Manchester Central Library where they handled the women’s suffrage collection and The People’s History Museum to see the wider context of women’s suffrage. The group also received a guided tour of Stockport Staircase House to learn about the local historical context of their borough.

RECREATING THE PAST

In the arts and crafts workshops the group recreated suffragist materials such as a protest banner, rosettes, sashes, leaflets, booklets and badges. For more information on how suffragists used these materials click here.

The group researched Stockport Suffragist, Hannah Winbolt, and how she was able to use her power of her upbringing to appeal to the working classes. The Game Changers group then decorated a giant jigsaw piece in the shape of the Stockport borough with Winbolt’s image and the suffragist colours, red and green.

For more information about Hannah Winbolt click here.

The group recreated the 1908 Manchester Women’s Suffrage Demonstration 1908 by marching down Lark Hill Place (a replica Victorian street at Salford Museum and Art Gallery) in costume wearing their sashes and displaying their banner.

For International Women’s Day the group displayed all their fantastic work at Stockport Staircase Museum and their lead artist ran suffragist themed making activities throughout the day.

APPLYING THE PAST TO TODAY

The group then applied what they had learnt about campaigning methods and applied it to today developing their own campaign. These consisted of workshops in debating, marketing, music, spoken word, corporate sponsorship and T-shirt printing.

For more information about these methods of campaigning click here.

These set of sessions also provided content for the groups to share at the recreation of the 1912 Women’s Suffrage Bazaar. The group also performed their own poetry and a brilliant dance!

ASSOCIATE LEAD ARTIST - Simone Frater Russell

Simone is a textile artist and workshop facilitator and use hand stitch and free motion machine embroidery in my own work. In her workshops she engages the participants with textile art methods in ways they may not have considered previously, as well as teaching the basic skills of stitch and print. Simone designs workshops suitable for all age groups and abilities and hope to inspire the participants to experiment and appreciate the versatility of textiles.