Yodomo awarded Impact Grant to run Hackney Creative Reuse Project

We're delighted to announce that Yodomo has been awarded a £50,000 Hackney Central Plan: Impact and Ideas Fund, coordinated by The London Borough of Hackney, to deliver the Hackney Creative Reuse Project. 

 

The Hackney Creative Reuse Project will connect local businesses with the well-established local maker community that is foundational to the history and development of Hackney. 

Funding was confirmed in March 2022, and the Hackney Creative Reuse Project will begin in April 2022, continuing over the course of nine months with a series of community events and pilots across the borough. 

The Hackney Creative Reuse Project

The Hackney Creative Reuse Project connects Hackney businesses, makers, and communities, finding innovative solutions to reuse waste and surplus materials creatively. Premised on the logic of the circular economy, it seeks to provide practical solutions to reusing waste while benefiting the creative community and local businesses of Hackney.

Hackney’s community of makers is looking to reuse materials, and businesses urgently need to better dispose of the 43.9 million tonnes of commercial waste (Defra) produced in the UK each year. The project looks to better connect Hackney businesses to its creative community. 

The Hackney Creative Reuse Project aims to consolidate a fragmented landscape by connecting local businesses looking for imaginative waste solutions to makers looking to reuse waste or surplus materials. This will be achieved through a series of free community events and pilots across the borough, hosted at locations including Fabrications, MakeTown, Anchor Retirement Homes and Well Space Community, over the course of nine months. 

Through these events and pilots, businesses will be able to more easily communicate available materials to Hackney’s creative community, and makers will search for materials depending on their creative practice needs through a pilot microsite. It will also foster further community as makers and craftspeople share creative project ideas on how to use specific waste materials.

 

The funding will encourage new thinking around commercial waste and surplus materials currently destined for landfills or incineration, as well as consider solutions to logistical challenges around the storing and distribution of waste or surplus material that has the potential to be reused creatively. 

Local businesses will have the opportunity to work with professional makers to devise useful and interesting projects to make use of specific waste materials, finding long-term waste solutions. These projects will also engage wider communities who can benefit from the health and wellbeing benefits of makings and crafts. 

Surplus materials that until now have been considered valueless, or even a cost to brands and businesses, can be reimagined by makers into something of value. In the long term, the Hackney Creative Reuse Project will help businesses to find lasting circular economy solutions for their waste and simultaneously grow participation in making in Hackney which has other societal benefits around wellbeing and community. 

Getting involved:

A number of 'participation in making' live events will be set up across Central Hackney using free materials. Events will use waste materials from local businesses and will be led by local makers who will share their expertise and creativity to show participants how they can rethink waste and engage in practical solutions to commercial waste. There will also be tailored workshops to support personal and professional wellbeing, establishing creative engagement opportunities across Hackney and bringing communities - old and new, creative and residential - together.

Supporting local business: 

The project will help businesses work with local communities by driving footfall through live events across Central Hackney, alongside marketing activities related to their involvement in the project. It will also support businesses in finding creative ways to reuse waste and surplus materials while growing awareness of the local businesses and manufacturers in Hackney. For the people of Hackney, there will be immediate health and wellbeing benefits of engaging in crafts and making. 

The project will also enable local people and communities to engage with climate action and learn about circular economy solutions for waste, giving them the opportunity to be part of a solution to an issue impacting their lives. 

Long term, through promoting local business adoption of circular economy approaches, the project aims to tackle climate change and provide opportunities to generate new economic value, jobs and more resilient supply chains. It will also foster community within Hackney by connecting residents to local businesses and makers through the creative act of reuse.

Local Participating Organisations

Events will all be held in Central Hackney and participating organisations already include Fabrications, MakeTown, Anchor Retirement Homes and Well Space Community.

About Fabrications: 

Established in June 2000 on Broadway Market, East London by Barley Massey, Fabrications has grown into a buzzing hub of creativity focusing on social textiles, upcycling and eco design through our shop, studio and classes. 22 years on our aim is still to inspire a joy of making whilst encouraging thoughtful and resourceful ways of living in a welcoming and creative environment.

If you are interested in hosting an event in Central Hackney then do please get in touch at the contact below. 

Hackney Central Plan: Impact and Ideas Fund

The Impact and Ideas Fund is designed to support local businesses and organisations in playing a larger role in shaping the future of Hackney Central. The fund forms part of the Council's work on the new Hackney Central plan, enabling businesses to invest in and realise their own ideas to increase their economic and environmental resilience, as well improving the town centre as a whole.

Denim reuse (Fabrications)

About Yodomo

Yodomo is a social venture growing participation in crafts to increase wellbeing and promote the understanding of reuse of materials. In our community and at yodomo.co, experts share skills with learners online and through events. Yodomo works with makers, supporting them to grow their practices sustainably, and encouraging reuse of materials where possible.

The word 'Yodomo' is a portmanteau of the words 'You Do More'. We encourage participation in crafts and making by bringing the expertise of independent artists and makers directly to you. Our makers teach either online, through kits or at live events.

Yodomo’s work falls into four key areas: Making and Reuse of Materials, Making and Wellbeing, Making in the Community and its professional programme - The Making a Living Programme™. 

Learn more and sign up to become a Creative Reuse member here.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Hackney Creative Reuse Project please contact: admin@yodomo.co