London Bridge businesses support Scoop summer theatre
This summer's open-air theatre season at The Scoop next to City Hall is to benefit from an £8,000 grant from the London Bridge BID Company
The Steam Industry theatre company and the Southwark Mediation Centre are to share £20,000 funding from the London Bridge BID Company's Building Bridges Taskgroup having beaten competition from 12 other applicants for the funding.
For the past five summers the Steam Industry has staged a season of free open-air theatre productions in The Scoop, the amphitheatre next to City Hall on the More London estate.
In 2007 30,000 people came to see 44 free professional performances including the family favourite The Jungle Book with a quarter of the audience coming from the local area.
This summer The Scoop will play host to productions of Lorca's tragedy 'Blood Wedding' and 'Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood' – a New Orleans musical adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood.
The Steam Industry's Building Bridges grant of £8,000 will be used to sponsor fundraising activity, with particular reference to supporting educational work with young people in Bermondsey and helping develop new community outreach programmes.
The London Bridge BID Company hopes that the grant will help to build links between the area's business and residential communities.
The Southwark Mediation Centre is to receive a Building Bridges grant of £12,000 to help train a group of 18 young people aged 16-19 to become mediators.
Once trained, these youth mediators will be available to every young person at their school or college, using their skills to manage conflict where disputes or bullying might occur. They will offer their service to all secondary schools in Southwark as well as addressing any cases of anti-social behaviour and conflict involving young people outside school.
Separate to the LBBC's Small Grants Fund, the Building Bridges fund is for longer-term community projects. The Taskgroup that allocates this fund is made up of nine representatives from organisations within the London Bridge BID) boundary, the LBBC and Southwark Council, and is chaired by Lindsey Nash of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The Building Bridges Taskgroup was established in 2006 to help London Bridge businesses understand the local area and develop ideas for their own community strategies.
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