Aklowa African Village, Bishop's Stortford, Essex

From the collection of

East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia

The East Anglian Film Archive, the UK's first regional film archive, offers a unique record of the East of England's social and cultural history. As part of the University of East Anglia, we continue to lead moving image heritage research and inspire audience participation through community projects and events. Our collections represent a broad range of amateur and professional creativity, from 1896 to the present day.

Aklowa African Village, Bishop's Stortford, Essex

East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia
Takeley
1977-10-17
Sound
5m

With workshops and performances, Aklowa village in Essex promotes a greater awareness of the richness of African culture.

Anglia TV visit a typical Ghanaian village, a village that is not on the African continent, but in fact, in the East of England. Ghanaian-born Felix Cobson is a true inspiration. He set up the village, a venue for creating a greater awareness of the African way of life, in the grounds of the old vicarage in the Essex village of Takeley. Schoolchildren from Stewards Comprehensive, Harlow spend a day drumming, dancing, and hair braiding, enjoying the richness of African culture

Black Lives

Portraits of public and private lives against the shifting social climate of 20th century Britain.

Black communities, like many Global majority groups, have long been ill-served by a mainstream British media accustomed to reflecting predominantly white, middle-class lives - a problem entrenched in the second half of the 20th century with the rise of television. Yet a rich tapestry of work from across the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction, film and TV, made for (though not always by) black people, does exist. This selection contains many surprises – some joyous, some sobering, some heartbreaking – and highlights the often painfully slow progress in addressing negative representations and stereotypes on screen. Impassioned and sometimes violent dispatches from the front line in the fight for racial equality can be found here, but so too can records of progress: in the pioneers breaking new ground in culture, politics and sport, and in the more mundane glimpses of everyday life. And this story is not just London’s story: the selection takes a journey around Britain, to a Nigerian wedding in 1960s Cornwall, an ‘African village’ in Essex and a Caribbean restaurant opening in West Bromwich; Newcastle