Light Up For Inclusion
Creative Campaign
A Community Journey of Creativity, Belonging & Visibility (2016–Present)
A Creative Campaign. A Community Legacy.
2016–2026 | Ten years of turning lived experience into creativity, visibility and belonging.
WHERE CHANGE BEGAN
Light Up for Inclusion began with a deeply personal experience of exclusion.
In 2016, our founder—an artist, art educator and mother—was navigating the realities of advocating for her own child to be understood, included and able to participate in education and community life. At the same time, she was looking at the cultural life happening around her: Christmas celebrations, public events and creative opportunities—and questioning who was visible within them, and who was still missing.
Rather than accepting exclusion as inevitable, she turned to the language she knew best: art.
The idea was simple but powerful. If children were not always being included in the spaces around them, could creativity help them claim a place within those spaces? Could a child’s artwork become a way of saying: I am here. I contributed. I belong.
That question became the beginning of Light Up for Inclusion—and helped shape the birth of Barkingside Art Club.
FROM ONE SMALL IDEA TO A COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN
The first intervention was modest. Children created handmade baubles and decorations for the local Christmas Light Up, transforming their creativity into part of a public celebration.
It changed the relationship between the child and the event. Children were no longer simply watching something created for their community. They were helping to create it.
Those first decorations became the foundation of something much bigger.
Year after year, Barkingside Art Club returned with another creative response. Baubles became lanterns. Lanterns became illuminated bees. Bees became banners, stories and collaborative artworks. Workshops moved into libraries and community spaces. Families joined. Schools participated. Artists and volunteers contributed. Local businesses and organisations began supporting the work.
What started as a small, largely self-funded creative action gradually became a sustained local campaign for visibility and belonging.
CREATIVITY AS A FORCE FOR CHANGE
Light Up for Inclusion has never been about making everyone the same.
It is about creating environments in which difference can exist visibly and confidently.
For our founder, the challenges that inspired the campaign did not simply disappear as the project grew. Her experience of advocating for inclusion continued. But rather than allowing those barriers to define the work, she used them to inform a wider commitment: to help other children, families and organisations experience what an inclusive creative environment could look and feel like.
That commitment has shaped Barkingside Art Club’s work across the last decade—creating opportunities for children and young people to make art, develop skills, exhibit publicly, volunteer, contribute ideas and become active participants in their community.
It is also part of the journey that led to our founder becoming a Child Friendly Redbridge Champion, supporting the wider ambition of creating a borough in which children and young people’s voices, rights and participation are recognised.
The 2026 anniversary programme continues that relationship, with the Light Up for Inclusion launch supported through Child Friendly Redbridge, bringing schools, home-educated children, families and the wider community together through creative workshops.
TEN YEARS. ONE GROWING LEGACY.
A legacy is not simply something we remember.
It is something we continue.
Over ten years, Light Up for Inclusion has demonstrated what can happen when lived experience is transformed into creative action.
2016–2021 — Handmade baubles and decorations brought children’s creativity into public Christmas celebrations.
2022–2024 — Bee lanterns and illuminated artworks developed a new visual language for the campaign.
2024–2025 — Banners, stories and collaborative artworks brought more voices and experiences into the work.
2026 — Hundreds of individual paper bees will come together to create a major collective installation at Fullwell Cross Library, marking ten years of Light Up for Inclusion.
The materials have changed. The scale has grown. The community around the project has expanded.
But the purpose remains remarkably close to that first moment:
to make space for people to participate.
FROM ONE CHILD’S STORY TO HUNDREDS OF VOICES
Perhaps the most important change over the last decade is that Light Up for Inclusion no longer belongs to one person’s story.
A journey that began with one mother asking why her child was struggling to be included has grown into opportunities for hundreds of children, young people and families to create, contribute and be represented.
That is the legacy we want to continue building. Not inclusion as a slogan. Not inclusion as a single annual event.
But inclusion experienced through who gets invited, who gets to create, whose work is displayed, whose voice is heard and who can look at a public space and recognise that they helped shape it.
On stage at Ilford 2023
Get involved. Make inclusion visible.
Join Light Up for Inclusion and help every child and young person be seen, heard and included.
This year, we’re decorating Fullwell Cross Library with paper bees carrying your stories, hopes and calls for change. Share the barriers you’ve faced in education or community life, what inclusion means to you, and the issues that deserve greater awareness.
Schools & Organisations
Bring your pupils or community group to our free creative workshops. Create together, explore inclusion and give young voices a public platform.
Register your school or group →
Individuals & families
Create a paper bee, share your story and add your voice to the campaign. Join our free workshops and help shape a community where everyone belongs.
Volunteer with us
Share your time and skills to help bring the campaign to life. Support our creative activities or volunteer with us on 23 November.
Local businesses
Display “I support Light Up for Inclusion” in your window. Stand with our community and help make inclusion visible across our high street.
Choose a link to email us. We’ll reply with the details and any registration form.
Every bee matters. Every voice matters.
Host. Join. Support inclusion.
Let us host a workshop at your venue
Bring Light Up for Inclusion to your business or community space. Our artists, Creative Ambassadors and young people from Spectrum Studio can lead a creative workshop at your venue.
Join a free workshop
Drop into the main library at Fullwell Cross Library on Wednesdays and Saturdays, starting 7 October, as we build towards our celebration on 26 November.
In just 10–15 minutes, create a paper bee and add your story, hopes or message of inclusion to our community display.
Free to take part. Just drop in.
Sponsor our campaign
Ten years of inclusion. Help us raise £10,000. Your sponsorship will help Barkingside Art Club reach more SEND children and young people through inclusive workshops and creative opportunities.
Show your support
Display “I support Light Up for Inclusion” in your business window and help share our campaign.
Every bee matters. Every voice matters. Your support matters.
Christmas Light up at Barkingside 26th November free event
4-8pm
We would like to invite all children, adults and families to join us and celebrate freely - without judgement or worry of intolerance at the Barkingside Light Up on the 29th of November, where our inclusive tree will set aglow with pride at ,
at Ken Aston square outside Fullwell Cross Library!
Join Our Free Community Workshops 7TH OCTOBER
Fullwell Cross Library, Barkingside
Help us spreading our project by sharing it with as many people as possible!
If you are a local business or organisation interested in supporting the project,
please get in touch to explore how you could do that!
Why Bee Lanterns?
The creation of the lanterns will demonstrate community resolve, despite the limitations - with each light symbolising hope and, along with our logo, the power in communication and teamwork with all bees working together to ensure a peaceful and thriving hive.
The story of our shining community lanterns will inspire, as each lantern represents the energy with which you support ‘inclusion and individuality’ in our community - regardless of race, culture or disability. When displayed together, the lanterns will showcase the coming together of a strong, united and inclusive community.
Why banners and posters?
Our banners and posters turn community stories into lasting public statements. Created with local organisations and community members, they celebrate those driving change and keep inclusion visible. Through artivism, we claim space to be seen, heard and recognised.
The Goal to achieve: Light Up to Support Inclusion!
The goal of our campaign is to make the community aware of the importance of inclusion.
Continuing with our annual creative campaign ‘Light up for Inclusion’ we aim to promote inclusion generally, within the Redbridge community and ultimately go towards making our community more accepting and tolerant. To do our small part and in particular to mark UK Disability History Month, Barkingside Art Club will shine a light on the following:
The importance of inclusion through visual art locally as provided by Barkingside Art Club for all including children with SEND
To urge local community schools, organisations, businesses to make an effort to be inclusive to children with SEND
To raise awareness of different cultures and religions, which bond the borough of Redbridge, making it a culturally diverse and richer community
If there is a diverse and inclusive community - through equitable sharing of resources and community engagement - we believe that everyone can achieve their potential despite their differences!
Light up for inclusion 2021
Mayor speech for Light up for inclusion 2023 at Barkingside