Monica Thomas
MT- Monica Thomas
INT – Interviewer
INT: Nice to meet you. Can you introduce yourself please?
MT: I am Monica Thomas. I work for Newham Council and I’m the council’s Arts Heritage and Events Manager. I work in a team that, basically, is the kind of front line to residents, so we managed libraries, community centres, you know, all kind of community engagement. So, I work within that service.
INT: Can you tell me a bit about the connection with Rosetta and how you got involved?
MT: Gosh! I can’t actually remember, but it was probably about 2015. I think I was given the brief to kind of grow our culture and arts offer, so we did really have that much we didn’t really celebrate LGBT history month or black history month or anything like that, and so once I was given that kind of brief, I just went out and about to meet existing arts organisations just to understand what the kind of landscape was working. II think it must have been at that time, I can’t specifically remember the actual time, that I first met Sanaz, but it must have been around that time, so it’s a few years ago and as I say it was just to understand what the sort of arts landscape was in Newham and what other people were doing and just basically to start a dialogue and to start a relationship.
INT: Have you done any courses or anything?
MT: No, I haven’t. I mean, it’s a bit strange, I mean arts is not in my background and I grew up not too far away from here, so I so might teens lived on More Avenue which is just around the corner and, I don’t think I haven’t used but I wasn’t you know I didn’t do our school it wasn’t really my kind of background so yeah, I didn’t know of Rosetta beforehand.
INT: Yeah, it’s kinda tucked away isn’t it. For me I cycle around quite a bit…Maybe you can tell us about your connection to Newham as well?
MT: Yeah, I was born in Newham. Brought up in Forest Gate. We lived in Canning Town – the early part of my childhood and then West Ham, and then my parents moved to Green Gate Street. I’ve always lived ,apart from sort of the early years, in a Stratford around, once a left my parents lived in Stratford. I still live in Stratford now, so yeah born and born and bred! (laughs)
INT: Can you tell us a bit about the changes from like when you kind of got involved in Newham, like sort of Rosetta, and how that’s changed green you know?
MT: Obviously, the big big change was for the Olympics because that completely changed the landscape. I think, for me, working in Newham with the appointment or the of the new Mayor in 2018 when Roxanne was on it was elected, that changed the landscape of Newham in terms of art and culture. So, we were, I said before, we didn’t do that much but for Every Child a Musician, and Every Child a Theatre Goer, but in terms of actually celebrating key dates, we didn’t really do that and that changed once Roxanna was voted in, you know, the Major made it a point to celebrate black history and LGTB month, you know, all those kinds of national dates, which we still do. I think that was a big change and I think people appreciated that, and yeah, we still continue to do that with South Asian Heritage Month. We have, you know, some local events as well like Newham Heritage Month which Rosetta has been a part of, which has been great and The New Word Festival. I can’t remember if they are a part of that as well, but you, know we like to give opportunities for local organisations to, you know, apply for funding and to deliver events or activities for local people, so ,that I mean that’s the change that I’ve seen in terms of council and what council offers and, but I think, you know in if you compare to say Islington or Hackney, we haven’t got as many NPO, which means less money is coming into the borough, but that’s gradually started to change. The council has its first Cultural Strategy for many many years and one of the ambitions for that is the grow the cultural sector in Newham and I think that’s important , you know, Rosetta quite recently a new National Portfolio Organisations and I think there’s another one, maybe about 9, whereas places like Hackney and Islington are up to double digits. And it does mean there is less funding coming into the borough.
INT: Is that GLA funding?
MT: No, that’s Arts Council funding. Its fixed funding for 4 years. It’s been controversial this year because of all the levelling up. Some existing NPO organisations lost their funding, as what they are trying to do, is spread it across the country and not just to London. But, you know, we go an extra one. Its good as it secures funding for 4 years.
INT: So, people can plan funding.
MT: Rosetta got it again this year, this round anyway.
INT: Yeah, it’s really great! Yeah I read about it as the Arts Council give massive funding to the Royal Opera House…connections…. Who are the audiences….
MT: …I don’t think we’re really taking the social prescribing, you know, element far enough. So, a member of my team has got the sort of responsibility for social describing and we’ve got a company in. They’ve got some Arts Council funding to train to do some workshops, train arts organisations and GPs around social prescribing, but I think, yeah, we really need to, kind of, utilise that and maximise the benefits of it. I don’t think we are at the moment; it’s been banded around for a number of years, but not really pushed enough but, yeah.
INT: How do you see the future, like things that are happening…you see other developments coming up?
MT: I think I’d quite like, as I say, we’ve got this Cultural Strategy which is the council’s Cultural Strategy which was published/launched last year. There’s quite a big emphasis on young people and nurturing young people and having the right pathways for young people to be able to go into the arts, if they feel that’s for them. I think you know; I went to, we had a plaque unveiling for The BB Crew – I don’t if you heard of them, but they were one of the first black led female theatre groups who were given the opportunity at Theatre Royal to put on their own productions. We had a plaque unveiling at Theatre Royal. One of the questions that was asked, it was the Mayor who asked was, what can we do practically do to make it the norm for people of colour people to be able to you know produce their own work and to see them more on TV in the media? So, the one thing was to have people like us being seen, making those decisions, but also to provide opportunities for young people; to make it easier for young people to be able to go into those kinds of industries. That will be a focus for us and I know the Mayor has a real focus and that will be one of her priorities to encourage young people, so one of her one pledges was to increase the number of youth zones we have, we have one in Stratford, but that is more arts based. I think that will grow, and it’s not just in the arts its opportunities for young people across the board. I’m hoping that we will be able to grow the number of arts organisations and the infrastructure we have in the borough. I know things are not great across the board and the sometimes arts and culture budgets are one of the first things to go. I think, we, you know, as long as we can make that case, and yeah, as a council we’ve had our budgets cut, as well as you, know across all services, but I think there is, I think, corporately, there is an understanding that arts and culture is important and, as you say, it has an impact across the people’s lives and it can help to reduce costs further on down the line where we know there are much higher costs, so if we can, you know, we can, use arts and culture to prevent someone getting into a crisis, that ultimately is going to save quite a lot of money further on down the line, but its evidencing that isn’t it.
