Quetzal Leicester awarded £2,631 from the Arts Council’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund by Leicestershire & Rutland Community Foundation – ensuring that creativity plays an important role in local community celebrations for Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The Let’s Create Jubilee Fund will ensure that thousands of people from communities all across England will have the opportunity to take part in exciting creative events – all in celebration of the Platinum Jubilee. From puppetry and story creation, through to making crowns, carnival and art trails, there will be a huge range of exciting activities for people of all ages and backgrounds to get involved in.
For their project, Quetzal Leicester is collaborating with Leicester-based artist Khush Kali to deliver The Queen and I Arts & Crafts project. The project invites Quetzal beneficiaries – women in their journey towards the recovery of childhood sexual abuse and their supporters living in Leicester to explore through arts the characteristics of a real or imagined Queen using a variety of mediums (inc. collage, drawing, textiles, painting, sculpture, and/or text).
The title of the project is inspired by the 1992 novel written by Sue Townsend who was a patron of Quetzal. The artworks will be displayed for the Queen’s Jubilee celebration in June 2022.
Made possible thanks to National Lottery players and administered by UK Community Foundations on behalf of the Arts Council, the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund will support a huge range of projects throughout England. 44 community foundations have been awarding grants across the country.
dr Marie Lefebvre, Development Officer and Project Facilitator at Quetzal – “We are ever so pleased at Quetzal to receive for the first time funding from Art Council England through Leicestershire & Rutland Community Foundation. The funding gives us the opportunity to bring our community together to explore the role of arts, culture and creativity in fostering connections as well as enhancing self-esteem and wellbeing. We are hoping that this set the start for more art projects at Quetzal supporting women in their journey towards recovery from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. Finally, how wonderful to honour our late patron, Sue Townsend and participate in the Queen Jubilee celebration, a milestone in history.
Darren Henley, Chief Executive at Arts Council England said “The Let’s Create Jubilee Fund is a wonderful example of our ambition to give everyone the opportunity to participate in and experience the arts, culture and creativity – made possible thanks to National Lottery players. This June, we’ll see communities across England coming together to celebrate a historic milestone for this country. I’m excited to see these projects brought to life in villages, towns and cities across the country as our wonderfully creative communities celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.”
Rosemary Macdonald, CEO, UK Community Foundations, said: “For community foundations, people and places are the priority and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is a unique opportunity for people to get together and celebrate in their communities. We are proud to have connected Arts Council England with local organisations whose imaginative and exciting projects and collaborations with professional artists will bring communities together to enjoy marking this milestone moment in our history.”
HM The Queen Elizabeth II is the first monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, having overtaken Queen Victoria as the longest reigning monarch in 2015. Her reign has been marked by a commitment to public service, reflected by her extensive programme of engagements at home and abroad, and support for over 600 cultural organisations, charities, military associations, professional bodies and public service organisations.
For more information please contact:
Nathan Dean, Communications Officer, Arts Council England
Tel: 0207 268 9648 / Email: Nathan.Dean@artscouncil.org.uk
dr Marie Lefebvre, project facilitator and development officer, Quetzal Leicester
Email: help@quetzal.org.uk
About Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high quality cultural experiences. We invest public money from Government and The National Lottery to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. www.artscouncil.org.uk
Following the Covid-19 crisis, the Arts Council developed a £160 million Emergency Response Package, with nearly 90% coming from the National Lottery, for organisations and individuals needing support. We are also one of the bodies administering the Government’s unprecedented £1.96 billion Culture Recovery Funds. Find out more at www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19.
UK Community Foundations is the membership organisation for the national network of 47 accredited community foundations across the UK. UKCF members inspire local philanthropy, bring communities together and fund great ideas. We have a deep understanding of need in our communities and the challenges and hopes that face them.
UKCF supports community foundations by providing advice, learning and resources, by championing philanthropy at a national level and by developing national programmes that invest in local communities. www.ukcommunityfoundations.org/
About Quetzal Leicester
