‘Who wants to learn how to make jam?” Shanelle Webb calls out after the children have finished eating tacos. The energetic hula-hooping, Christmas wreath-making, dancing and playing with fidget toys briefly pauses and hands go up to a chorus of “meeee!”
On a table, chopping boards and knives are laid out and a group of children surround the 25-year-old as she demonstrates how to cut strawberries. Next, they heat them on a hob with pomegranate and sugar. Later, they will take some jam home.
The idea for the Soul Shack started in the summer of 2019 with a plan written in bubble writing in Webb’s notebook to create a youth club in the area of south London where she grew up. In the short time since, the Black and youth-led Lambeth-based social enterprise has become a vital hub working across the community from young children to pensioners.
It runs free school holiday activity programmes for primary school-age children, a weekly food bank that serves 15-20 households and a community garden in Kennington. It is funded by Lambeth council and the garden is supported by the mayor of London’s Grow Back Greener fund. This year, if she can find the space and the funding, Webb is hoping to set up a community cafe, food pantry and year-long youth training programme.
“The starting point was easy because I wanted to make something for children that I would have wanted to attend or that I thought was necessary,” says Webb, preparing food in the kitchen of Kennington Park community centre, on a housing estate metres away from the Oval cricket ground. It’s the week before Christmas, during which they will also cook and distribute 100 Christmas dinners to the community.
Keeping the Soul Shack running is hard, she admits, but she is determined to create an alternative for children in a society where youth groups and a sense of community are dwindling. “In today’s world people find it difficult to connect with local community and their neighbours.”
Donations to 2022’s Guardian and Observer charity appeal, which has so far raised over £1m, will go – via our two partners, Locality and Citizens Advice – to local charities and community projects such as the Soul Shack, which are working at the frontline of the cost of living crisis in some of the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods.
Over the four-hour session, about 25 children engage in activities and conversation, and are given a warm meal. They are supervised by Webb and a group of paid trainee youth workers.
The atmosphere is fun but safe and the children seem comfortable to play, talk, dance and be themselves.
While spinning a hula-hoop around his neck, Jerome, 10, from Stockwell, says he loves the food here. He also attended the summer holiday scheme, which included a visit to an outdoor cinema. “It keeps me out of the house,” he says.
“I like seeing my friends and it’s just so much fun,” says Atarah, who is six and lives nearby. “I like dancing and singing with them and I like doing this, decorating stuff.”
Webb has been doing youth work since she was 18. She studied politics and international relations at Southampton university, but found herself returning to youth work.
When you think of a youth worker, she says: “You don’t necessarily think of a young Black person from a working-class background. So I mainly wanted young people when they come to the scheme to see adults who look like them. From the same racial background but older.” This, she believes, is part of the reason why children coming to Soul Shack feel so comfortable.
