The Past year at SWAPA
It's been a very busy year at SWAPA and there is a lot to celebrate, captured here in an open letter from our Chair of Trustees Nitasha Kapoor.
' I have the privilege of writing this letter as a snapshot of our successes and challenges over the last year. We’ve seen our post-covid hard work start to pay off - we are more confident in our vision as an organisation and we won an Arts Council grant to help secure our future.
And then we were voted Best Adventure Playground in London 2023! SWAPA continues to be a place of wonder, where beautiful things happen that wouldn’t happen anywhere else, and I’m honoured to be a part of the team.
With over 45 years of place making, having been embedded and beloved as a community resource across generations, we’re often on the receiving end of random acts of kindness and generosity. They’re impossible to predict but last year we had a string of encounters that left us all quite speechless…
For example, a parent whose daughters used to play at SWAPA got in touch to make a sizable donation towards our PlayFence. “We discussed which charities meant something to us and the girls immediately said SWAPA”.
The next month we has a visit from a prime time TV presenter alongside Dame Judi Dench, we showed them around and film a TV programme about the importance of supporting these rare learning environments that support neurodiversity.
“This place is incredible. There should be more. You have my backing”
- Judi Dench
The next month we had a message from Super 8, the company that runs Michelin-starred BRAT, Mountain, Kiln and Smoking Goat in London. Tomos Parry, head chef at BRAT, had hosted a beautiful cooking lesson and lunch for SWAPA’s young people in 2022 and they were keen to do it again, nurturing their interest in cooking, and why don’t we build SWAPA a new outdoor kitchen too?! Yes please!
Our ability to “catch” these opportunities when they arise and manage them alongside our day to day provision helps SWAPA stay vibrant and relevant to our community.
I’m pleased to report a greater capacity within the board of trustees to support in this way. Thank you to trustees Ariane Hanman, Katherine Mengardon, Mara Bodis-Wollner and Chiara Farina for their ongoing involvement.
We are committed to providing open-access, unstructured play provision, at a time when young people are facing increased pressures and rigidity in the school setting and many of their wraparound care centres, because we witness firsthand the transformative effect it has within a few hours of playing freely at SWAPA.
For example, Free Youth Orchestra have delivered monthly experimental sound explorations at SWAPA where musicians and artists set up a variety of weird and wonderful instruments and effects to let the kids play around, as they wish. The sessions are advertised as drop in and the musicians are there as needed, there’s no structured lesson. Over the months we have gathered a group of young people who would like to develop their skills and talents further…the first ever truly experimental youth orchestra is taking shape and expect a concert and album in the near future!
Our reach is growing - we had 427 young people visit over 2023/24, with 40 attending more than 20 sessions. We continued to deliver free hot lunches to all children over the school holidays - 50% of which were to young people on free school meals. We have a regular group of home-educated young people who use SWAPA as their base every Wednesday morning and we’re pleased to have developed stronger links with Stoke Newington Secondary School - their young people enjoyed visits to SWAPA during their Easter holiday camp, and now we have a group of year 7 and 8s who regularly attend after school sessions. We’re pleased to report we have extended our provision from four to five days/week - a milestone that we have been aiming for since 2019.
Saturdays are now family friendly from 12-5pm and our core group of young people help throw fantastic community events 4 times/year with roasted marshmallows, bbq and ice lollies depending on the season. It’s lovely to see the older kids getting more involved in helping run the playground, and help shape our community building.
The biggest challenge for the coming years is structural - our beautiful wooden perimeter fence is 45 years old and falling down and it is a major expense upwards of £300K to replace with like for like. Without a similar structure we risk changing what makes our play space so unique and attractive to young people, but who wants to fund a fence?
We started the year with a big win from the Arts Council - £30,000 towards co-designing a new playable structure with our young people that would double as our boundary fence, what we’re calling our PlayFence, and a way to turn an expensive problem into an opportunity to reinvigorate all of SWAPA. Adventure Playgrounds have historically struggled to receive funding from the Arts Council so we share this win with the whole industry.
In the Spring we ran the programme - a 6 month consultation including child-led co-design workshops and live experiences with renowned artists and designers, including Morag Myerscough (visual artist and designer), Dinah Bornat (architect and child friendly cities advocate), Dan Snaith (musician Caribou/Daphni), Sam Shepherd (musician Floating Points), Parker Heyl (UCL, Bartlett School of Architecture), Lina Johansson (Mimbre Acrobatics) and Moulaye Diallo (Hackney Carnival Senegalese lion performer). Lizzy and Lleu from Made from Scratch turned these ideas into brilliant PlayFence concepts, including a 360 parkour, performance stage, outdoor workshop and modular self build space, graffiti paradise, sensory tunnels and other hidden treasures.
Thanks to fundraising Playground Jam parties held at the Baths in Hackney Wick, and donations from local residents, funding from the East London Business Alliance, with support from Mayor of Hackney Caroline Woodley and Lucy McMenemy at Hackney Culture, SWAPA has raised funds to build the first part of the fence. Our next goal is to raise 45k in the next six months to support building the next section and a crowdfunder is live:
justgiving.com/campaign/swapaplayfence
We continue to get stronger as a team, and have restructured our senior management to better support each other. We were pleased to promote Tilly Hawthorne to Senior Playworker, and George van de Byl as Deputy Playworker, both having worked at SWAPA for over five years. Sarah Wilson has taken on the role of Office Manager and Jake Milne continues as Lead Builder and Site Manager. A huge thank you to their commitment, alongside our Playworkers Joel, Kirsty, Gemma, Ebony, Tom, Jess, Kayann, Fern, Mark, Darlene and Sebastian. who continue to be trusted and friendly faces for our young people.
SWAPA benefitted from the ongoing support of East London Business Alliance (ELBA) with regular corporate team days to provide much needed maintenance and structural work to the site. Thank you to London Play for their ongoing efforts and support to raise the profile of Adventure Playgrounds in London and nationally. Many thanks to Stephen White and Simeon Dixon (Young Hackney) for their ongoing support at Hackney Council.
We welcome local parents and community members to join our mailing list, What’sApp channel (07988 571 232), Instagram or Twitter to keep up with news and volunteer opportunities. If you would like to join as a trustee please email trustees@swapa.org.uk for more information.'
Nitasha Kapoor
Chair of Trustees
Shakespeare Walk Adventure Playground
