We are incredibly proud to share a new animated video of a powerful spoken word piece written and performed by Spark Inside Champion and talented artist, Jonno Mambu.
We met Jonno when he began coaching with Spark Inside coach Michael Roper, in the community.
We wanted to shine a light on the power of coaching for young adults and the positive impact it can have on their wellbeing, as part of our Being Well Being Equal campaign. We believe the best way to create relevant materials showcasing the work we do, is to work alongside young adults to create those materials. This project was an exciting collaboration between our communications and advocacy team, Jonno Mambu — a talented spoken word artist and Tim Powell, a brilliant animator.
Our “Champions” are a group of young people who’ve received coaching from Spark Inside, either in prison or the community, and choose to continue working with us to help shape our strategy, coaching programmes and campaigns. We also offer paid opportunities to our Champions for projects suited to their individual skillsets, allowing us to platform the voices of young people with experience of the criminal justice system. Since joining our circle of “Champions” in 2021, Jonno has contributed valuable insights across many Spark Inside projects and research, and built a strong relationship with our other Champions.
We were delighted to have the opportunity to put Jonno’s extraordinary creative skills front and centre in this animated spoken word piece about his experience of coaching. We look forward to sharing this video in prisons with young people, to encourage them to take part in our Hero’s Journey programme and begin their coaching journey.
Watch Spark Inside and Jonno Mambu’s animated spoken word piece below.
Learning from the co-production process
The co-production process was a huge learning experience for our team. The finished piece is a world away from the original ideas discussed in the beginning and we see this as a demonstration of the quantity and quality of time and listening involved!
We reflected on this journey in a dynamic, honest, behind the scenes video, including what we learnt about co-producing with young people.
Jonno said:
“Whoever you are working with, you should definitely allow them to project their ideas. It’s important to know that traditional ways of creating this type of content is not always the way forward. When it comes to young people, you wanna try different ways.”
“We done it the right way and we gave it the right time and investment that it needed.”
We would like to thank Jonno, Cecilia, Polly and Tim for their fantastic work on this project! Please help us spread the word by sharing these videos with your networks.
