City Lit celebrates Learning Disability Week 2020

It’s Learning Disability Week (15-21 June 2020), a great campaign by the charity Mencap, to raise the awareness of learning disability across the UK. This year, the theme is the importance of friendships during lockdown because due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have all been living in lockdown. This means that many people with a learning disability are feeling isolated, as they have been unable to see their friends and families.

For Learning Disability Week 2020 we here at City Lit want to celebrate the incredible friendships and connections that make up our City Lit community, and in particular our students with learning disabilities, and show how important they have been during lockdown. We’re also exploring different ways of maintaining friendships during this unusual time.

We’ve asked our students with learning disabilities what friendship in lockdown means to them:

Christopher Catto

"My friend Sara is very nice.

I have known her all my life, she is my godfather’s wife.

She is very supportive and likes my artwork. She always has nice things to say about my drawings and paintings etc.

She sends me photos of herself and her family so I can draw them.

I like her because she keeps in touch with me and she is very good at answering my emails, which I appreciate."

Silvester Boyne – Change the World class

Silvester lives on his own with a carer who comes in once or twice a week to bring shopping in and help with reading post etc. He has been contributing lockdown listening lists to the students in the Change the World class chosen from his vast and treasured vinyl collection.  

"My friends ring me to see how I am. I am missing them. I have an old school friend who I have known for about 50 years.  He lives in Surrey Quays. At the moment he is very lonely. We go back years, we were at school in the 1960s and we have been friends all that time. I go and see him every week.  I can’t at the moment but I will when all this is over. I will go and see how he is.  He lost his girlfriend and it hurts him to talk about it. I tell him: don’t think about the past, look forward to the future."

Georgina Harris

"At the beginning of the lockdown I didn't feel like contacting any of my friends as I was so anxious. But over the next few weeks I started to text, and then talk online and on the phone. When we were allowed to meet up one-to-one, I went for short 'social-distancing' walks with a friend from around the corner. It was nice to see someone who wasn't my parents or brother after so long at home with them!  My friend and I were very pleased when the ice-cream van came back to our park and last week it was great to play a game of tennis at the local courts. I cannot wait to be able to meet up with more of my friends and go back to Art Workshop at City Lit!"

Rosie and Reza 

From Hidden Sounds class, playing music together on a zoom call - watch their video here

Rosie is using a switch on her Grid software to trigger samples (piano and recordings of our phone calls in the first week)

Reza doesn’t have computer access, so he's moving his phone camera to control sounds on my computer (piano notes are higher depending on how much light the camera picks up).

 

Jimi Shoruna

"I want to talk about my cousin. I’ve known him since I was a kid. Toks is his name and we’ve been friends since I could remember. He has the same height as I do. He is very friendly and likes to make jokes. We like going out together to the park for long strolls and visiting each other in our houses. 

We’ve been communicating with each other on phone and video calls ever since the lock down and are making plans to go out after the lock down is lifted. 

My favourite memory of Toks will be when I met him and his friend at a restaurant near Clapham Commons and had a wonderful dinner over great conversations. I really enjoyed their company that evening. 

Toks is a great friend!" 

Brendan

"In times of this pandemic aka Covid 19 I try to contact my friends from City Lit by calling them on my phone or messaging them on WhatsApp or texting and even if I'm staying in Ireland out in the countryside and they might be living in London. I tell them about what's going on Ireland. For example I got two naughty puppies called Dora and Meg who we take for walks every day and maybe they can share what's on in their local community and that eventually. I will come back to London and this Covid 19 will be a thing of the past. 

Rest assured I'm doing fine and I hope all of my friends from college keep well. I will always be there to listen to my friends and share opinions on the pandemic or on movies and such topics of interest. I know certain friends are worried about catching covid. But if you these practice things like washing your hands avoid public transport and doing social distancing you should be fine."

Isa

"My friend's name is Pauline. We have been friends for many years. She is a very nice person and have a good heart. We have been going to cinemas and restaurant together. She has been ringing me every week to find out how I am doing during the lockdown period. Pauline always invites me to sleep over her place during celebration of her birthday so that we can go to cinemas, restaurant and also have little party in her house. 

Also, my sister's name is Sue. She rings to check on me most of the time and during the lock down period. She helps me to do my Christmas shopping and also took me on holidays to Somerset, and we lodged in a nice cottage. We went round Somerset and visited lots of places, and I saw an Indian man dressed in their custom playing their cultural instrument. I again saw lots of ponies, lamb, and chicken walking around the place. Also, I saw very old bridge, huge wind mill, a castle, a garden centre with lion statues. 

My Key Worker is Monica. She supports me quite a lot. She coordinates all my activities such as coursework, update my documents, birthdays, clothes and food shopping etc. Monica is a very nice and helpful Key Worker and she will go every length to support me to get things done properly."

Oliver Eisa

In this video Oliver Eisa shares his story on friendship >

Joe Turrell

"As part of the assignment I am doing about stories of friendships during lockdown, here is my story

that I have written about my best friend who I get on really well with, Kwaku Owusu Akyem.

Kwaku is an amazing friend who I’ve known since we first met while at Redbridge College, in my opinion he is a really good character with a great personality full of kindness which helps bring a smile to everyone’s face.

We enjoy going on days out together as we both share the same interest of doing things, such as going to see exhibitions at the British Museum and going out to see music festivals, one of the things he is most brilliant at is singing, when he sings his voice can be full of rhythm that he can lift up the room with so much passion and joy.

During the whole time in lockdown, we’ve both managed to stay in contact with one another by doing zoom calls on WhatsApp and Facebook, because I like to chat with him and we ask each other how we’re getting on at the moment and knowing how our Family is keeping.

Kwaku is someone I am proud to call my best friend, he cares a lot about other people, likes to get on with things and do them well, and what I like about him so much is his talent for singing, especially when he sang the song Bring Him Home from the musical Les Miserables.

This is my story about my best friend in the world, my mate Kwaku."