Happy Easter from all of the staff and team at Baytree! What a gorgeous weekend we just had with lovely sunshine and promising weather for the next few months to come. This week, whilst preparing for the Summer term, we have been reflecting on all the wonderful things that the Spring term brought us and below we have compiled some of our favourite and top moments to share with you from across the centre, enjoy!
We Won 1st Place at London Youth Art Exhibition!!
Baytree’s 11+ Art Club girls came in first place at the London Youth Art Exhibition with these amazing works of art. This competition was a great opportunity for young people who are talented visual artists to have their work exhibited and the chance to win prizes for their youth organisation. These portraits were painted of inspirational women by talented girls from Baytree – heroines painted by our own heroines. We are thankful for WAC Arts for showcasing such a breadth of talent from different youth groups in London. We also want to share an official congratulations to all the other artists from Baytree and beyond who participated in this celebration of London Youth Talent! Make sure to congratulate our talented artists!
‘The Limit’ Musical at The Vault Festival and Workshop with Freya Smith!
We would love to send a big thank you to Freya and Jack and the rest of the team at the Bottle Cap Theatre Company for putting on a brilliant musical workshop for our participants as part of our Heroines Week in March. That week, we celebrated the virtue of self-discipline and our heroine Sophie Germaine, the self-taught mathematician, who is the focus of Freya’s new play “The Limit”. Coinciding with International Women’s Day and British Science Week, “The Limit” celebrated Sophie, who is an inspiration to women and girls of all ages to pursue their dreams despite of any obstacles in their way. A big thank you for the tickets that were generously donated so our participants could enjoy this musical! We hope some of our future scientists, mathematicians, and actors at Baytree were inspired by the workshop and Sophie’s story.
Into School Spring Party
The young girls both currently enrolled as well as the alumni of our Into School project had a spring party at Baytree followed by a trip to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. To make the event even more special, we invited and partnered up with other young women and girls from Young Roots. Young Roots are a fantastic organisation who work with young refugees and asylum seekers, with the aim of helping them realising their potential through fun and educational activities and trips. The day consisted of playing lots of ESOL games together, practising their English and sharing stories and facts about themselves to encourage new friendships. After lots of food and delicious treats they head to the gallery to check out the current exhibition, soaked up the sunshine in the park and continued getting to know one another. Thank-you to Young Roots for coming and for Dulwich Picture Gallery for having us.
Women’s Trip to Donmar Warehouse
Women’s Services’ participants had a wonderful trip to the theatre as a well-earned trip after their successful ESOL exams. We attended the Donmar Warehouse, which is the home for leading artists to make world-class theatre. Donmar Warehouse believes that representation matters and that diversity of identity, of perspective, and of lived experience enriches our work and our lives. For some of our women, this was the first time at the theatre!
Get to Know our New Staff!
We welcomed two new staff members to our team, Angela Parkes as our Volunteer Coordinator and Federica Saez as our Mentor Coordinator. If you see one of them around the office next term, make sure to say hello!
Angela is our Volunteer Coordinator. She has over 15 years of experience in the voluntary and community sector, including experience with youth mentoring & development, literacy, and adult mental health and wellbeing. She has a certificate in counselling skills and, having completed the first year, hopes to complete a Diploma in Person Centred Counselling. She’s motivated by making a positive difference and believes that regardless of individual backgrounds, everyone should have access to opportunities to succeed and reach their full potential, seeing and experiencing the impact small grass roots charities can achieve through hard work and focus is very rewarding. In her spare time Angela enjoys reading, cooking, gardening and spending time with her family.
Federica is our Mentor Coordinator. Uruguayan and a lover of her country’s traditional tea called ‘Mate’, she came to London three years ago in order to pursue further professional challenges. She has a degree in Business Administration and wide experience in the hospitality sector, in which she discovered her passion for the Learning and Development area. She feels privileged to be involved in a girls and women empowerment project like Baytree. She loves travelling and has a lot of experience volunteering for social inclusion projects in Kenya, Uruguay and the UK.
We are so excited to have them join us and we hope that you can welcome them, too!
