Over the next two months, Kindred will be sharing a series of podcasts to challenge people’s views about money. Creative developer Rhiannon Lewis has been talking to a range of people in the Kindred community, to hear about what they do, how they do it, and how it plays a role in their community…
“My interest comes in with the narrative around money I had growing up – we didn’t have a tonne of it and, I think that – paired with a Christian household – meant that I believed that money, the business world and, by extension, power itself, were somehow inherently bad,” she says. “The fact is, we live in a capitalist society where a lot of communities don’t get the returns they deserve. Reframing narratives around money and business is key to redistributing the balance of power to the everyday person.”
Rhiannon’s project – A Penniless Fool Talks Money – will be released over eight weeks throughout June and July, with episodes linked via this page, and shared across our social platforms.
“To me, especially as a queer woman, the empowering of communities and initiating dialogues between intersections is so important,” she says. “This podcast is to empower the voices of people in the local community and spread the word – anyone can make a difference.
“This has tied into my work at Kindred with the beginning of a project called Small Acts, where we will give small pots of money to small ideas. It’s all about encouraging giving ordinary people a voice – because ordinary voices and ideas, amplified within their communities, are in fact extraordinary.”
Eight episodes start today, 7 June, with different experts on community business and money. Episode one is with Ngunan Adamu, who runs iWoman – a CIC that uses radio as a means of empowering women who are currently out of work.
• The second (14 June 12:30pm) will be with Emily McChrystal, Youth Empowerment Director at Comics Youth, a creative community organisation made by young, marginalised people, for young, marginalised people. It runs programmes across the year to empower its young people and has its own publishing house, Marginal, which publishes work by the young people it works with.
• The next (21 June 12:30pm) is with Keith Hackett who started Park Palace Ponies – an initiative to make the generationally-significant sport of horse riding accessible to inner city kids.
• Episode 4 (28 June 12:30pm) is with the guys that run Evolution Fitness XL, the largest gym in St Helens, which does a massive service to the community with the work they do for mental health in the area.
• Following that (5 July 12:30pm) is an episode with Victoria Farrelly, who is the CEO of Global Make-Up Academy, a media school that teaches skills and gets experience for young people to build careers in the media industry (from make-up artistry to singing to modelling) – no matter their background.
• Episode 6 (12 July 12:30pm) is with Miguel Doforo, self-taught dancer and creative director of MD Creatives; a dance-school with global acclaim that aims to uplift its diverse body of students and improve their mental and physical health.
• The penultimate episode (19 July 12:30pm) is a stone’s throw from St Helens, with Steve from Parr Sports Centre. The centre serves as the beating heart of the community, with hundreds coming through its doors for everything from professional boxing coaching to craft sessions with the elderly to chats in the community café.
• In the final episode (26 July 12:30pm), Rhiannon chats with Kindred’s programme director, Erika Rushton. She also works under title Creative Economist, and talks about her opinions on the economy and how we can make things better moving forward.
You’ll find them on Spotify as they’re released by clicking here…