Today is Giving Tuesday!

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We’re back with our regular Charity Tuesday feature. However, today is actually Giving Tuesday, a worldwide event which encourages people to give back to society. This week we’re focusing on a charity that’s a little bit different to the others. Carousel is a charity that enables those with learning disabilities a chance to reach their full creative potential. The charity puts learning disabled people in charge of their creativity, whether it be in film, music, performance and production. 50% of the Board members have a learning disability, and they have thirty three years’ worth of experience providing world class support.

Oska Bright Film Festival

Carousel offers training for venues that want to assess the way in which they welcome and facilitate the needs of learning disabled people as well as the performers, audience and staff. Working with the likes of Brighton Dome, they have advised front of house and other personnel, led by learning disabled people. They have delivered 391 workshops, ran over 431 events including club nights, film screenings and radio shows, reaching an audience of 38000 people. Carousel Singers is a choir made up of people with a broad range of learning disabilities performing their own compositions. Last year they teamed up with their own dedicated band of musicians and worked with them using Figurenotes, a system of notating musical stores. You can listen to the Carousel Singers via SoundCloud.

Carousel Radio is aired on Radio Reverb at 2pm on the first Sunday of each month (that’s this Sunday!) and it’s show, Shut Up and Listen is a show and podcast planned and presented by learning disabled DJs and radio presented, and one of the only places on the radio where youc an hear music exclusively by learning disabled bands and musicians…like Zombie Crash for example? Zombie Crash are a heavy metal band consisting of learning disabled people. Scoring a feature in legendary rock magazine Kerrang!, the band are rocking out and raising awareness, all at the same time. Recently, Carousel put on the Oska Bright Film Festival at the Brighton Dome’s Corn Exchange. The film festival previewed some of the best films made by people with learning disabilities, from music videos and animation to horror films.

As well as donating to the charity, there are many other ways in which you can get involved. You can use your creative genius to help others find their creative genius by helping out with the various activities that they put on. To find out more about who to contact for what, head here. You can also follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook. If there is a charity you think we should feature for Charity Tuesday please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

Holly Martin

[email protected]

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