accumulate youth charity uk feedback
Feedback from Accumulate participants:
Sam Adesanya, October 2016
I would like to tell you about my experience of the Accumulate Project which was created by Marice Cumber.
I’ve been part of the Accumulate project for over two years. Before I was a part of it I was stuck in a prison of a hostel. Days were tedious and mundane. It is hard living in that sort of environment where everything is stifled. Creatively I was wasting away. However, this all changed when I heard about the Accumulate project.
Before I knew it I was whisked out of the hostel and taught photography. Through Marice, I met Othello and others who taught me about aperture, F-stop the relationship between light and dark and various other things.
Marice then gave us as a group a chance to show our work within an exhibition, something which I’d not only never done before, but also something which I had never even considered.
Eventually by keeping up with the project we were given the chance to actually exhibit our work within the Guardian building in King’s Cross. I even got on ITV2 and London Tonight and in the local newspapers. I was ecstatic as I was seeing the seeds of my photography, seeds which Marice and others had planted, bear fruit.
The best moment for me came when I was awarded a scholarship award to go to Ravensbourne college. I had previously visited the college with Marice and as soon as I did, I fell in love with the place. That when I made up my mind that I would go to Ravensbourne by any means necessary. With help from Marice, Othello and my own willpower, I’m glad to say that I now attend Ravensbourne college studying HE Design and Digital Media. I hope to get a distinction and progress into the undergraduate programme.
Jamila Ford-White: November 2016
When Accumulate was offered to me I was going though quite a bad time I just had to leave my college course and so had nothing do for about 6 months. Photography has been something I have always been interested in, I did some small courses while I was in secondary school but was never able to actually continue it. Accumulate took me to many places that I had not been to around London which was very nice, we were able to meet new people and speak to and work with different companies. For instance going to The Photographers’ Gallery just off Oxford Street, meeting two up and coming fashion designers and going to London Fashion Week with them and taking pictures (this where most of my exhibition photos came from), shooting a band and the Camden Roundhouse. All of these things made me think about the things you can do in the future. I can only thank and appreciate all the people that put their time in giving me something amazing to do during those months, if it was to happen again I would do it in an instance.