Black History Month workshops

Black History Month workshops celebrating African and Caribbean Culture and the History of Black people within Britain and Europe

Culture in context

Drumming!

An engaging and fun way to get everyone working in rhythm. Everyone gets a drum to play on.

Dance!

High energy but easy to follow moves. A really fun way to get a full body workout!.

Recycling!

Learn about the world largest e-waste dump and turn milk bottles into useful objects, masks, elephants or birds.

Adinkra!

Find out about the symbols and proverbs of the Akan people. Then either make your own symbol or use ours to print your Adinkra Cloth.

Storytelling/drama!

Learn about Anasi the cheeky West African Spider. Question and answer sessions facilitate student led learning, bring Africa right into your classroom. 

Pottery

Explore African traditional pottery artefacts and then set about making your own. Learn a simple coil technique and then use Adinkra to decorate your pots.

Painting

Working with Kwame who was the artist in residence at Ghana’s Centre For National Culture. Learn his unique style and recreate paintings with your own twist.

Kente

Explore a wide variety of cloths from West African including Kente one of the most famous and expensive. Looms mean there is a 15 student limit for this workshop.

Trade beads

Learn about the history of West Africas trade beads, explore some artefacts and make your own colourful beads from magazine and newspapers.

Disrupting gender sterotypes

Did you know that there are Matrilineal societies in West Africa where property descends through the female line? Did you know there is a strong history of female warriors in West Africa and the Caribbean? A rediscovery through story, discussion and debate.

Poverty of aspiration

An inspirational workshop based on drama, story and the drum. Whilst poverty of circumstance is higher in Africa poverty of aspiration is relatively unheard of. An exploration of the fear of succeeding in Britain and issues surrounding poor motivation.

Topic based

We have covered many issues and are happy to work with you. Previous topics include: Slavery, the creation of ‘Africa’, racism, Black people in Britain, The Windrush, South African emancipation and much more.

Drums as standard and up to 200 by special request, enabling us to take larger classes and lower cost per student

Stories from Griot and Anasai from both the caribbean and African traditions

Years delivering workshops. Tried and tested specialists

Authentic cultural arts forms as standard

Black History Month workshops

All of our activities are fully accessible and adaptable equipment is available. We are more than happy to work to meet your learning objectives and have explored slavery, inequality, racism, the history of Black people within the UK, stereotyping, religion and much more! We work with groups with a wide range of skills, gifts and abilities and are happy to lead open learning sessions where students can really engage with our practitioners cultures.

All our school workshops aim to introduce positive views of Africa and challenge stereotypes. Activities are unifying, adapting to the differing abilities of those within the group.

Most importantly all of our practitioners are teaching about ‘their’ culture for a truly authentic experience.

The details

How do we timetable?

Our team will work with you to get the best outcome to reach your objectives.

A session can be from 7 separate classes a day or we can work intensively with one class.

How many students?

As standard we work with a class at a time, if you have space we are happy to work with 2 classes at a time (or up to 60 students) in your hall or larger room.

Maximum – 7 workshops or up to 420 students in a day with one art activity.

How long is a class?

We recommend classes of 60 minutes, though 40 is possible.

We are very happy to work on longer more in depth projects, weeks and days.

Can we mix activities?

Depending on the practitioner available you may mix in as many activities as you have time for. There is no additional charge for this so why not follow an arty morning with a musical afternoon?

What do you need?

Very Little! We will bring all of the materials with us for your workshop. The exception to this is recycling. We can bring materials but we feel the collection is a valuable part of the process for the children

How much is it?

Options run from £2 – £16 per student. Please fill out our quick quote form and we will get right back to you with a proposal.

Why choose us?

We are dedicated African Arts specialists, passionate about the transformative power of education

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Authentic

Black History Month is hugely important for all pupils, it enables horizons to be broadened for some and recognition, representation and pride for others. 

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Inspirational

Our practitioners are able to challenge and inspire your students. Placing lives and aspirations into perspective exploring poverty aspiration and helping students explore and question why they would not strive for greatness.

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Cultural Context Matters

Our practitioners have not learnt a culture. It is their culture that they teach. Because of this they are able to go deeper with the learning and catch the curve ball questions. A truly immersive learning experience.

African Activities works hard to redress an imbalance that we, as Africans, perceive in the west.  We simply do not recognise the one dimensional view of the rich and diverse continent that we derive from!

At African Activities we are proud to be the leading supplier of African themed workshops across England. An African Activities workshop guarantees an authentic and quality experience from our exceptional artists. We are proud to work with international musicians who we believe are the best you will find outside Africa, our musicians work across every continent except Antarctica and the Arctic! Of course we are CRB checked and insured.

You can view our workshops on CBeebies and the BBC. We invite you to view our testimonials and see what those who work with us think of our outcomes!

Our workshops will bring African into your school, workplace, community group or festival and we feel we have a lot to offer!

Get a no hassle quote today and find out what your schools African Activities day might look like

What our customers say

Find more of our testimonials here

“Excellent! Each session was tailored for the year group and managed in a fun but firm way. The children got a lot out of them. Thank you!”

Limpsfeld School

“He fully encouraged questions and provoked enquiry about printing symbols. Every activity was interesting and the children were engaged and focused. We all loved it.”

Old Vicarage School