Ministry of Stories

Published on Jul 13, 2022

This month we caught up with the team at Ministry of Stories, read on to find out more about their goals and how our Community Pot initiative helped them this Summer.

Aim of organisation

Ministry of Stories champions the writer in every child by helping young people discover their confidence, imagination and potential through the power of writing. They aim to develop self-respect and communication skills through innovative writing programmes and small group mentoring for children living in under-resourced communities, working in schools, and at their dedicated writing centre in east London.

Money Received from Community Pot 

£2500

Name of Project

Community Writing Labs -Time To Write

What are the key objectives of this project?

The project is meant to help pupils find their voice using their imagination and ideas. By attending the project they also feel physically and emotionally safe. They learn how to become more confident, positive and courageous and by the end of the project, their writing skills will have improved.

What the project entails

The project lasted from January to April. There were 5 community labs taking place every week for 12 weeks. During that time, the pupils learned how to explore a subject matter of their choice which would end in them creating Zines. Those would be presented in a Zine Fair at the end of the project.

Zine, short for magazine or fanzine, is a small circulation of self-published, non-commercial unique work, which is mass-produced via a photocopy machine. The zines can include images as well as texts.

Ministry of Stories produces zines that do not have the actual handwriting of the children. Instead, the text is written on a computer. The reason behind this is to not pre-dispose the reader that a child has written it and develop low expectations about the work they have in front of them.

During the process of the course, the pupils learned how to become more confident whilst simultaneously learning something new as well. They learned how to trust their imagination and ideas and create something of their own to be presented. They developed additional new skills, as well as improving their grammar and writing.

Beneficiaries of the scheme

The beneficiaries were 72 pupils from nearby schools. A high percentage of them are from a BAME background and families with multiple children. Their ages are from 10 till 13 years old. Most of the time , they are referred by their families. Those pupils usually are not very good in grammar and writing, or they do not enjoy school much. By attending the MOS project, they gained knowledge on how to write better whilst exercising their imagination and boosting their confidence.

Volunteers

The people that work on the project are paid artists, such as a comic writer, a neurodiverse artist and a manga artist. The masterclasses are matched to the group of pupils and their interests. Apart from the artists, Ministry Of Stories also has a lot of volunteers helping in the classroom.

Project Goal

The project was achieved to the fullest as the Community Pot money helped with delivering the Winter project run. The pupil attendance was excellent, all of whom attended the course from start till finish. The Zine fair at the end of the project went extremely well, with pupils sharing their work with family and friends at the end of it. The pupils felt proud creating something of their own that could be shared.