Turning lives around

A homelessness project, run by a Chippenham arts charity and funded by Spice Girl Mel C, celebrated its successful first year at a conference in London.

The Chippenham-based Kandu Arts for Sustainable Development has been touring the country with its No Place Home project since January, working with homeless people in major cities through music and drama.

There are now plans to bring the project to Chippenham, where homelessness is a little recognised problem.

At the conference homeless people from across Britain got up on stage to talk about how No Place Home had changed their lives. Many have started work, enrolled at college and found a roof over their head since becoming involved with the project.

And guest of honour, Melanie Chisholm, better known as Sporty Spice, said she was taken aback by seeing the success of the project for herself.

When she wrote her top ten single If That Were Me, she decided to donate all its royalties, which amounted to £50,000, to No Place Home, after hearing about it from Kandu director Ed Deedigan.

Speaking exclusively to the Gazette, Melanie said: "This is exactly what I envisaged for the song.

"But I can't describe how much better everything that's come of it has been.

"I really believe in the song and I wanted it to be a charity song. I suppose I thought it might get a few sympathy buys. But it's done so much more than that and become so much more personal.

"It's easy enough to give someone your spare change, but to be able to do something like this and follow it, and see the benefits and the changes it has made to people's lives is great."

Representatives from the Government's Department of Culture, Media and Sport, homeless charities and homeless or previously homeless people themselves, gathered at Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre in London for the event.

Film star Nick Moran, who was in the blockbuster Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and is one of Kandu's patrons, also showed up to lend his support.

The audience was shown a video, following the project from Bath, to Swansea, Salisbury, Nottingham, Sheffield and Bristol.

In the affluent city of Bath, homelessness is a real issue. Cale Ingram, who works at a support group called Off The Record, said Kandu's visit had had a profound effect on homeless people.

"It has inspired them to do the sorts of things they wouldn't have even thought about before the project," he said."It's incredible this much has been done."

After just days working with Kandu, young people were expressing their deepest feelings of despair, hopelessness and loneliness, many of them for the first time, through drama, poetry and song-writing.

One young man, known as Lostboy On The Streets, wrote in his poem:

"You sit in the park or in a doorway. No plan, hope is a brave-faced liar.

You feel yourself dissolving.

You are nothing.

No one looks at you or talks to you. And you suddenly realise that you're

invisible."

Another homeless woman, Jay, who took part in the project in Swansea, broke down in tears when she got up on stage to read a poem she has written about her experiences.

One man who took part in the project in Bath got a job as an entertainer at a Butlins holiday camp a few months later, following a boost to his self-confidence.

Mr Deedigan said the evidence that No Place Home had made such a difference to so many lives would stand Kandu in good stead for attracting funding to make the project a permanent thing.

This year it failed to get sponsorship from either the Arts Council or the National Lottery.

"We are looking to resubmit for funding to extend this now we have proof it's effective," he said.

"Now we have statistics about all the people who have got jobs, got themselves flats and started college. It's been unbelievable."

Melanie said she had no regrets about helping to fund the project, but agreed with Mr Deedigan other organisations that had access to funding for such programmes should have come forward with the cash.

"It's very sad there isn't more help for problems like homelessness and I think it's absolutely disgusting how much isn't done," she said. "I shouldn't have had to fund this, but I'm very glad I was in a position to be able to."

Mr Moran heaped praise on Mr Deedigan's work.

"The first thing I saw Ed do was a morning workshop in a tiny little studio hall with a group of people performing contrived plays and drama and music," he said.

"Now it's gone national and that's amazing. It has really put the charity on the map.

"The people working for Kandu are hard-working, diligent, warm, genuine people, and I didn't realise there were that many of them about."

Mr Deedigan said there was money in the pot to bring No Place Home to Chippenham early next year, and to tackle a problem that many people didn't realise existed in the rural market town.

"Homelessness is a hidden problem in Chippenham, he said. "We may not see people actually on the streets, but there are many people moving from one person's floor to the next, or sofa-surfing, with no real place to call their own."

If any local businesses would like to get involved with the project in Chippenham, they should contact Mr Deedigan on (01249) 655695.