Case Study - Under One Roof

Programme: Your Heritage
Applicant: Skippko
Grant awarded: £49,700
Project length: 11 Months

Under One Roof - printable (MS Word, 3.71MB)

Summary

Skippko is a Leeds based charity that develops innovative projects with community groups. For this project, they worked with four disadvantaged older peoples groups and four local primary schools based within the East and South East areas of Leeds. ‘Under One Roof’ focused on the heritage of the house and home and enabled people to identify and celebrate their own heritage. Most of the project participants were new to heritage and many of them faced barriers to their learning due to economic or social reasons. The groups were encouraged to work together to research, share and interpret their heritage through visual, photographic and written media. Each group created a Russian doll that reflected their heritage. A celebration event and exhibition at Leeds Museum showcased these dolls to a wider audience.

The aims of the project

The project had four main aims:

To inspire an interest in heritage for all group members and engage them with local museum collections.
To bring older people together and enable them to discover, gain an understanding of and feel ownership over their own heritage
To help children gain an insight into heritage and their wider community by working alongside older people and hearing their stories firsthand.
To increase the participants’ confidence and self esteem.

Benefits for heritage

There was an increased understanding of heritage amongst project participants and the local community.
New audiences were introduced to the Social History Collection at the Leeds Museums Discovery Centre.
The older people groups each produced unique large Russian style dolls that reflected their stories and experiences
The Russian dolls were taken into schools and encouraged children to get actively involved with their heritage and create their own dolls.

Benefits for people

Different generations and communities were brought together and people felt more involved with the wider local community.
Some older participants used computers for the first time and expressed an interest in using them again to do more research in the future.
The final event and participants’ project diaries demonstrated that their confidence had increased, especially amongst the older participants.
People had the opportunity to explore, interpret and share their heritage and the project created a sense of value of the lives of ordinary people.

Lessons learnt

Regular and clear communication with partner organisations was essential especially when there were staff changes. It was important to be clear about expectations from all parties involved.
Involving the head teacher in the project and providing teacher briefing sessions helped to ensure the work was embedded in the school curriculum.

Long term benefits

Participants have been inspired to continue researching their heritage.
The four schools involved in the project have made plans to work with the older peoples groups again, enabling other children to take part.
The Russian Dolls will be promoted through Education Leeds in all Leeds schools as a resource for schools to engage children with heritage.

The budget

Main Project Costs	£	Funding	£
Equipment/materials	4,640	Other grants	800
Staff/fees for freelance workers	19,600	Non-cash contributions	6,916
Travel for staff/volunteers	2,190	HLF grant (86%)	49,780
Activity Costs	7,088	Total costs	52,856

Young children wokring on their russian dolls

Participants creating Russian Dolls that reflect their heritage

Sector

Cultures and Memories

Activity

Participation; Learning