Now we have a lovely space at our new offices on Granby Street we will be beginning storytelling classes on Monday mornings! You don't need any experience or qualifications, just a willingness to learn new skills to share with your family. It is a 10 week course where you will learn the basics of storytelling, build up your confidence to tell stories to your children or family and friends in an engaging way. We also learn how to write our own stories, and then include them in a book or storytelling sack. Our inhouse storyteller Hema, is a professional storyteller who makes stories fun! The lessons are free so give me a call to register as places are limited. Classes begin on Monday March 12th 2012. For more details call Rebecca Abrahams on 01509 821035 or email rebecca.abrahams@charnwoodarts.com

On Saturday 11th June, Jemma and I took a group of 60 very excited children and their parents from Rendell School up to the Outwoods. It is part of a project with the Borough Council to encourage local families, especially those from our more diverse communities to both visit and enjoy the local green and open spaces. And what a great day we had! The weather was just lovely when we set up our base camp of a range of activities, these included storytelling with our 'inhouse' storyteller Hema Acharya, a sensory walk and den building with Karen Fry and Sue Monk from the Borough Council, and a memory box craft activity with Vanessa. It was just wonderful to see both the children and parents enjoying the fresh air and fabulous scenery! Watching the children running round and climbing the trees was what it was all about. A free coach was also provided through the funding of the project to enable the families to access the Outwoods. We had some great feedback from the families who all declared they would definitely come again! Our thanks must go to the Borough Council, Rendell School, our artists and volunteers who all helped to make this great project possible.

At last we have the long awaited next edition of Rangoli..... Rangoli 3! It is packed with interesting articles and pictures about the Ecstasy and agony of everyday rural life by artist, filmmaker and photographer S. Jayaraj, some excellent poetry by Iranian poet Mohsen Jabbari and an insightful article by the publisher and Lowdham book festival organiser Ross Bradshaw concerning our love affair with Indian writing, there are even more great pieces than this, but you'll have to download Rangoli 3 to feast your eyes upon our literary delights! As always we would welcome any feedback about Rangoli 3, the content, articles, and pictorial images.

Kajal Patel, photographer of our great Rag Pickers exhibition, undertook a photographic workshop with a group of ladies from the Peepul Centre on the 22nd March. During the workshop Kaj took the ladies through the process of taking different types of photo's, in the age of digital technology all of the ladies either had a camera phone or camera, so they found the workshop really useful and informative! Kaj also showed the ladies around her exhibition which has been at the Peepul Centre for 6 weeks, where it has been incredibly well received. She spoke to them about her work and her time in India. You can see from the pictures they had a great time! Kaj is available for workshops to talk about her work and teach photography. Her great exhibition is also available for loan and has supportive learning resources available. For more information please email rebecca.abrahams@charnwoodarts.com

Mountsorrel Library is once again hosting Kala Kahani for an innovative 'Quilt and Stories' class. The classes are based on the South Asian traditional art of making a quilt when a baby is born and then adding patches to it about the babies life as the child grows. During the classes we will learn how to both write and tell stories, as well as undertake some exciting craft skills! The classes will be every week from Tuesday 10th May, from 10am to 12 noon at Mountsorrel Library. No experience is necessary and creche facilities are available. If you would like to join the class or would like more details, please call Rebecca on 01509 821035 or email me on rebecca.abrahams@charnwoodarts.com

Local writing hero Bali Rai will be visiting Loughborough on Saturday May 14th in a joint event between Charnwood Arts Kala Kahani Project and Loughborough Library

Charnwood Arts UK2K12 - Connecting Cultures and Communities

Charnwood Arts UK2K12 - Connecting Cultures and Communities

Charnwood Arts UK2K12 - Connecting Cultures and Communities 

'An Evening with Daljit Nagra' As part of the 'Everybody's Reading' Festival we are pleased to announce that Daljit Nagra will be coming to Leicester! Daljit will be spending the evening with us at the very prestigious City Rooms, reading from his work and taking questions from the audience. There will also be an opportunity for local poets to read their work to Daljit after the interval. 'Daljit is of Punjabi background but was born and raised in London then Sheffield. He has won several prestigious prizes for his poetry. In 2004, he won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem with Look We Have Coming to Dover! This was also the title of his first collection which was published by Faber & Faber in 2007. This won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and The South Bank Show Decibel Award. He is a regular contributor to programmes on radio.' Date: Wednesday 15th September

Kala Kahani and Leicester Libraries are delighted to welcome Arvind Mehrotra , the first Indian poet to be nominated for a professorship by Oxford University to Leicester on Thursday 4th March. In his own words he will be 'entertaining us with 2000 years of Indian poetry in 90 minutes! From early Prakrik love poems to Kabir (15th Century) to Arun Kolatkar (1931 - 2004)' As the author of four books including the Absent Traveller (Penguin Classics) he is also an essayist, editor and translator of numerous works. During his visit to the UK he will be speaking at the Goldsmith's (University of London), and the English Faculty of Oxford University on Kabir and Kipling, reading poetry with Tom Paulin, Bernard O'Donoghue and others at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and at the Avril Bruton Creative Writing Prize event, also at St Hugh's. We are pleased to welcome Arvind to the prestigious City Rooms on Hotel Street from 7pm. Places are limited but tickets are free and will need to be booked in advance via email bookdoctor@leicester.gov.uk or by calling 0116 299 5426 For more details please contact Rebecca Abrahams on 01509 821035 or rebecca.abrahams@charnwood-arts-org.uk This event would not be possible without the support of the University of Northampton School of Arts and CCFN (Centre for Contemporary Fiction and Narrative)

In November and December of 2009, the Royal Geographical Society loaned Kala Kahani a stunning travelling exhibition called 'Punjab: Moving Journey's.' the exhibition consists of 21 panels that can be mounted on exhibition boards and reveals the 'Punjab', a region that spans both India and Pakistan. Developed in partnership with the UK Punjab Heritage Association, the Muslim Women's Welfare Association (Ilford), the Cartwright Hall Young Ambassadors (Bradford) and the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, the exhibition links London and Bradford to the borders of India and Pakistan. Through the Society's 19th century photographs, maps and texts the Punjab's history has been rediscovered and retold by community members, focusing on migrations, within and across borders, from the earliest history of the region, through Partition and into the 21st Century. Combining contemporary commentary from British Punjabi's with Victorian photography with accounts from British visitors and colonial administrators, the exhibition uncovers this region's complex history and the challenges facing Punjabi's in 21st century Britain, including how they relate to their British adoptive home and an Indian / Pakistani homeland. We placed the exhibition at three venues across the Midlands, Leicester College (Painter Street Campus) as part of their Inter Faith week where it was in the Atrium main reception and viewed by passing students, it also went to 'Coping with Cancer' and was used to inspire a group of ladies to write about their personal journeys as part of a creative writing workshop based on the Exhibition. And finally it went to the Niskam Centre in Birmingham which receives in excess of 30.000 visitors a week. It was extremely well recieved and we are very grateful to the Royal Geographical Society in loaning it to Kala Kahani.