A group of young people from Wapping Youth Football Club painted a new street mural to celebrate the NHS in September 2020. Paint the Change hosted a series of art workshops run by street artist ATMA and celebrated youth mentor Efe Ezekiel with Wapping Youth Football Club to help local young people develop their creative skills and express their views on social justice through street art.

The new public artwork celebrates the diversity of the NHS and frontline workers using hand-drawn flowers to represent the 200 nationalities that make up the NHS.

Nahimul Islam, founder and Chairman of Wapping Youth FC said, “Our young people wanted to brighten up the streets around Wapping. And they have things to say. Our ‘Anything Is Possible’ project works to raise the ambitions and aspirations of local young people and our work with Paint the Change has helped them think through the issues in our borough that are important to them.”

Paint the Change founder, Maziar Bahari, said: “Our workshops help young people connect with the things they care about in their area. With guidance from professional artists they express this among their peers and learn to translate their own ideas into visual art. This can help to develop a sense of self, to process trauma and generate a sense of community. These young people become active participants in their neighbourhood, adding a source of pride and hope to their part of the city that can fuel further change.”

Here’s what some of the workshop participants had to say…

Ava: “I don't really like going to workshops normally, but I've actually had quite a good time. I really do like being able to do art and, you know, express those beliefs in the art, because when you're on your own, you don't really think about other people's beliefs. And you know, that gives you food for thought, really.”

Moriom: “The mural we're all working on to celebrate the NHS and present as many flowers as we can. I think it's so, so beautiful because when you look at a flower, you instantly feel good about yourself and you see the beauty of a flower and its uniqueness and every petal, it's different and it's asymmetrical, so all of the flowers you see will all be unique from one to another. So that's exactly what an NHS staff member is, like each flower represents them. “

Muhsin: “It's so special that we've been able to kind of cross the generations, the younger generation and the older generation. You know, you've got the NHS workers and we've been able to translate that into art. And so 200 languages but one language of love is something so powerful because we're from so many different communities, from so many different ethnicities. But the fact that we have that one thing in common and that we can celebrate love and empathy is something that we've been able to bring together in art and that's just something so special for our community.”

Tanvir: “How many hundreds of people walking past the mural, one of those might be a changemaker, someone who can go and make that change that we're trying to sort of ignite. It's really the long game, but it's an amazing initiative.”