St Mary's whole school exhibition - Working with children from Reception up to Year 6, providing
arts workshops and final artworks ready for display. A final permanent display was intended to
take place when the Grenfell Tower Fire happened.
Notting Hill Carnival Community Space Pilot 2 – Inviting groups to disseminate 'Know Your
Rights' materials at Carnival in a secure space. Worked with Stopwatch to disseminate materials.
GRENFELL TOWER FIRE
2017 saw the community of North Kensington struck by one of the UK's worst peacetime disasters
in living memory. The Grenfell Tower Fire of June 14th was a trauma that the local community will
take generations to recover from, if ever.
The work of Brownbaby has been a valued part of the North Kensington community for a decade,
since 2006/7. That work has meant that the Chair, Toby Laurent Belson, in particular, has been very
close to the community of North Kensington. 3 projects were run by Brownbaby between 2009-12 in
the area surrounding Grenfell Tower, including artworks and the decoration of the community rooms
at the base of the tower, artworks for the local children's centre and weekly sessions at the local youth
club.
Toby worked with a young man who sadly passed away in the tower, as he attempted to reach his family in their family home.
Toby also worked with a local parents group, founded by a resident who passed away in the tower.
Toby is close with a resident of the tower and member of Grenfell Action Group. Both are leading
members of 3 local campaigns that have been looking out for the interests of the local community in
relation to community assets since 2014.
Due to the impact the fire has had on our Chair, much of his focus – and in turn that of the organisation
– has turned to its immediate and ongoing consequences.
Brownbaby received emergency funding (£15k) from Tudor Trust/London Funders, to cope with the
impact sustained by Toby as he gave up all other work and focused on activities - many of them
voluntary - around the Grenfell Tower Fire. The funding also enabled Brownbaby to contribute to the
response with a professionally built website. The activities carried out by Toby and other Brownbaby funded
or supported practitioners include:
• Full design and build of the grenfellsupport.org website
• Voluntary support for the Grenfell Support wordpress page – a key information source in the
days and weeks following the fire
• Voluntary support for Green for Grenfell, including leading the Grenfell response (with the
support of Grenfell United) at Notting Hill Carnival, including the illumination of Trellick
Tower
• The Carnival response also included the protection of the Lancaster West Estate, the
implementation of a Quiet Zone on the Carnival route closest to the tower, and 1-minute
silences on each day. Significant traditional and social media work took place.
• Voluntary support for the implementation of a process of legal support for local community
members, bringing together human rights solicitors, legal charity INQUEST and local
organisation North Kensington Law Centre. This process helped to ensure that community
members in need of legal support were directed to the best possible support for their specific
needs.
• Voluntary support for the Justice 4 Grenfell campaign. The campaign was launched a few
days after the fire, with a silent march from the North Kensington Library.
