Five Accumulate students awarded Ravensbourne scholarships

Accumulate is an art school charity that uses creativity to empower people who are homeless. This year’s 2020 Showcase and Scholarship Awards Ceremony was held via Zoom and saw five students, Nikol Dehaan, Anne Whyman, Ola Ojerinola, Mitchell Ceney and Prosper Kouyaep receive scholarships to the Access to HE course at Ravensbourne University.

The showcase was presented by Jay Blades from the BBC’s The Repair Shop. Jay, who has also experienced homelessness, shared his own experience and detailed his career in the creative industry to date. The showcase aims to celebrate the creative work produced by Accumulate students and this year featured three students who read out their own, emotional stories about their lives and experiences with homelessness.

Accumulate, which is run by Marice Cumber (Work Based Learning Co-ordinator at Ravensbourne), works in partnership with Ravensbourne by fundraising for scholarships for the Access HE course in design and digital media. By supporting the students' education, Accumulate and Ravensbourne hope to build the skill sets of individuals who experience homelessness so they can have the confidence and foundations needed to progress with their lives and careers. The partnership has a proven track record of success with 19 Accumulate students being awarded scholarships and eight of these going on to do degrees. The five scholarships which were awarded this year have been generously funded by Ruth Keattch, Hawkins Brown Architects, Brickworks London Estate Agents and Chelsea Arts Club.

Accumulate has worked alongside a plethora of impressive organisations in their pursuit to deliver creative outlets to people who are homeless. This includes the Arts Council, Royal Society of Arts, BBC, The Guardian, Victoria and Albert Museum and The Barbican, just to name a few. During lockdown, Accumulate has increased the number of Art Kits they send to hostels, recovery centres and mental health wards, as well as running online creative workshops for the homeless community. This has been particularly important during the lockdown period as more individuals find themselves in a position of extended isolation or vulnerability. In addition to this, Accumulate students have created ‘The Book of Homelessness’ which, after crowdfunding helped them to achieve their financial target for publication, will be released in November 2020 and will help raise much needed funds for the charity.

It is an amazing opportunity for the five lucky winners of the scholarships and Ravensbourne looks forward to warmly welcoming you to our cohort of students.