Case Study - Sailing to Britain

Programme: Young Roots
Applicant: Tara Arts
Grant awarded: £17,800
Project length: 11 months

Sailing to Britain - printable (MS Word, 521KB)

Summary

Tara Arts is an Asian-led theatre company founded in 1977. They aim to advance public education by producing plays that are from, influenced by, or about the culture of, Asia. The Sailing to Britain project, focused on Lascars. These African, Asian and other foreign sailors served on British ships with the East India Company from the 18th to the 20th century.

Tara Arts recruited young people to research the history of Lascars settling in London, and their contribution to life in the city. The young project participants learned how to use archives, translated their findings into a play, and even rigged a tall ship. The project culminated in an exhibition at Croydon Clocktower.

Tara Arts delivered the project in partnership with Croydon Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Geographical Society and the National Archives. ‘Sailing to Britain’ was awarded the Inspire mark, linking the project to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The aims of the project

This 11 month project had four main aims:

To actively engage young people in the development and delivery of the project and celebrate their achievements.
To develop young peoples’ skills in researching and interpreting heritage, including training young people to become archivists on the project.
To share the young people's learning with secondary school students.
To build knowledge about heritage within Tara Arts by working in partnership with heritage organisations.

Benefits for heritage

The exhibition at Croydon Clocktower highlighted this little known aspect of our diverse heritage, and brought it to a broad audience.
An education resource pack was produced for secondary schools, helping to raise further awareness of the history of Lascars and their migration to London.
Oral history interviews were recorded with relatives of Lascars and Indian families who had migrated to the UK.

Benefits for people

32 young people took part in project activities, and a steering group was formed to ensure their ideas and aims were reflected throughout the project.
Two young people were trained as archivists. They spent five days at the National Maritime Museum learning about photographic archives, paper conservation, and sourcing research materials.
Working with the Old Bailey Archive was particularly exciting for the participants, with references to Lascars who had been abused or involved in criminal cases in the East End. These case studies were used to create scenarios for re-enactment in the performances and for the education resource pack.
Three school inset sessions were delivered, attended by 83 students and six teachers. A further 121 children and adults took part in interactive workshops also held as part of the project.

Lessons learnt

Recruiting subjects for oral histories proved difficult as there were few relatives of Lascars remaining, resulting in less being recorded than originally planned.
Partnerships were crucial in providing access to archives for the young people, and in delivering training in heritage skills, such as object handling and curating.

Long term benefits

Five young people earned Bronze Arts Awards through the project.
The project enabled Tara Arts to secure the Inspire mark from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games.

The budget

Main Project Costs	£	Funding	£
Staff/recruitment	8,674	Match Funding	7,017
Activities (equipment, expenses, overheads)	15,051	HLF Grant (72%)	17,800
Training	1,745	Total Costs	24,817

Project exhibition held at Croydon Clocktower

Sector

Collections

Activity

Participation