Tower and Town, September 2019

  (view the full edition)

Editorial: Thriving Through Venture

Here in Marlborough, and more widely in Wiltshire, Thriving Through Venture is working with vulnerable young people with low self esteem and little sense of purpose in life. We engage them in purposeful projects in their communities here and then related projects in Marlborough’s link community of Gunjur in The Gambia. The confidence of those young people involved in TTV last year was dramatically improved as you will read.

The current group of twelve students, both state and private, is engaged in studying the global issue of migration. They have interviewed migrants to the UK and spent a day with the Gambian community in Bristol. They have met with refugees attending the ‘Harbour Project’ in Swindon and they have learnt about the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees from Claire Roberts Lamont.

Whilst in the Gambia in August, where they will be partnered up with a Gambian counterpart, they will meet with “failed migrants” who have crossed the Sahara in their attempts to get to Europe, arriving in Libya only to discover the ghastly conditions under which they are forced to live before the risky crossing of the Mediterranean in unseaworthy craft, and then have decided to return home.

Of the group, some will be studying the art and skills of photography to illustrate a report on migration and others will learn about performance in order to demonstrate what they have learnt through a public performance to be held in the Ellis Theatre at Marlborough College on Sunday 15 September at 7.0 pm – do come! No tickets required but (generous) retiring collection expected!

I am grateful to the contributors to this edition of Tower and Town for their wonderfully reflective articles on the impact of Thriving Through Venture. And thanks to Marlborough Brandt Group and the 37 year sustained partnership with Gunjur without which relationship of trust between the people of our two communities, none of this would have been possible. And, by the way , two of the young contributors to this edition were generously supported by the Kempson Rosedale Trust.

Nick Maurice