Welcome to SCAWDI
Be a part of conserving important Black heritage in the West Midlands and sign our petition to save the ‘slave cave’ carvings found in the grounds of a stately home in Warwickshire. More information can be found here: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/savetheslavecaves
SCAWDI have published their brand new book, A Day in the Life: A Black Heritage Trail of the West Midlands. To get your copy call 0121 4407778 or message info@scawdi.co.uk.
SCAWDI began life as the Sparkbrook Caribbean & African Women’s Development Initiative in October 1997. We were determined to create exciting new opportunities for ordinary black women, enabling them to actively engage in mainstream civic life. Now, we are known simply as ‘SCAWDI' - a small, vibrant organisation specialising in community development. Highly innovative and creative, we pride ourselves on creating new opportunities, constantly breaking new ground, pushing back the barriers to enable participation, inclusion, enabling & empowering people to break the cycle of poverty, deprivation & disadvantage. Enabling people to fly.
Over the years, we've come a long way.....
SCAWDI Heritage is dedicated to engaging members of the local community in the human tales that represent the diverse histories of our cities, towns and neighbourhoods. Since our 2006 project, In the beginning…, which looked deep into the links between Black history and the stately homes of England, we have been searching for more evidence of this early Black presence in the West Midlands and their experiences.
In 2007, to celebrate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade we worked with English Heritage on another project called Interwoven Freedom which brought together two of our passions, history and crafts. Members of SCAWDI created bags which represented Birmingham’s women’s involvement in abolition.
Most recently, 2010 saw the culmination of our previous work, and the work of others in our History Detectives booklet. This is a research piece written by our members which highlights the variety of experiences the Black population who lived in this region prior to 1918 had.
For more information, including details of our new Heritage Lottery Funded project creating a Black History Trail.
Community Projects
Here at SCAWDI, we pride ourselves at being 'cutting edge' - working at the sharp end of local communities & we believe we make a significant difference to peoples' lives. Our impressive track record and portfolio of highly innovative programmes vouch for this. The key for us is we design programmes around people - creating opportunities that widen their menu of opportunity, meets their needs and aspirations. We also offer training workshops, take on special projects, undertake commissions and work across all sectors, from the commercial to the public sector. We have a small but growing team of highly qualified professionals - all of whom are skilled and experts in their fields.
If you'd like to know more, please feel free to contact us. You'll be glad you did.
Sports
Some of our sports initiatives have passed into legend! Others continue to grow and develop. SCAWDI was the first to pioneer grass roots tennis for inner-city kids back in 2001. We have seen some of our young people blossom into competent players, winning matches and even have our own home grown tennis coach! Everyone said we were mad when we approached 'The de Vere Belfry' and began a fruitful Golf Coaching programme. 'You can't give inner city kids golf clubs' they said. SCAWDI turned it into the uber 'Urban Sport' ! We do Surfing, Clay Pigeon Shooting, Archery, Horse Riding - as well as foundation sports like cricket, football etc.
SCAWDI introduced our highly acclaimed 'MUGA League' street sport initiative which continues to grow. We have a 'SportsMobile' - a mobile sports centre that enables us to deliver sport direct to young (and older) people on the street!
We even have our own canal boat, which is being refurbished ready for next season!
We have working models and good practice guides available for all our sports - if you would like to know more, please contact us.
