Nurturing raw talent, catalysing creative development, and supporting mental health through industry-standard music and media pathways for diverse communities at our creative South London Community Hub and via our vibrant online community.
Raw Material Music and Media is a creative nucleus for the communities of South London. Our purpose-built 3-storey building boasts 2 recording studios, a computer suite, DJ and music, and video production software and hardware, and a live room for performance, workshops, and ensemble work.
Our specialism is music and media as a tool for self-expression. We work with hundreds of people every year to create, collaborate, perform and progress.
Our arts and wellbeing programme works with young people and adults across a range of weekly creative activities that support their emotional wellbeing, mental health, survival and development through music, performance and arts activities.
Our staff work to build confidence and resilience so that they may lead better and improved lives. Our work with referral agencies and support services guarantees that they can access the right services to enable them to have the best possible options for their wellbeing.
In particular, our Raw Sounds programme has become a solid favourite of young people and adults and is one of the few resources that people actively request to be referred to. In a world where it is difficult to get people to engage in services and attend appointments, this service is unique in the fact that people readily attend, without needing reminders. The programme continues to represent the vast majority of programming at Raw, with over 150 members engaging in sessions throughout 2021-2022. After a brief period of closure during the pandemic, Raw developed a digital offering of Raw Sounds. This was a difficult but necessary transformation for the programme, and allowed us to continue reaching members throughout the pandemic, whilst also increasing the variety of skill development offerings that we can share with participants.
We have worked hard to offer access to devices and technological support to our members throughout the pandemic, which as a result led to our members developing their own confidence when engaging with online signup procedures and even seemingly simple tasks like signing into our building via iPad.
Many of our members have never owned a computer or iPad, and had very little confidence and knowledge in how to use devices so providing them with this additional confidence and skills felt like a major achievement.
From April 2021, Raw Sounds operated as a hybrid programme with a combination of in-building and online sessions, before the full return to in-person sessions in September 2021.
Core activities in 2021-22 included House Band and songwriting sessions (over 30s & under 30s), vocal sessions, Music Production sessions in Logic Pro X and Soundtrap, Podcasting sessions, individual lessons in guitar, drumming, vocal technique and songwriting and studio recording sessions.
