‘The Bluebox in Newham: Home of Champions’ – about our project

Who are the Fight for Peace Young Creatives?

The Young Creatives Project aims to nurture young people’s creative talent by giving them support and opportunities to develop their skills in film production, photography and social media content. The work of Young Creatives is published on the youth-led Fight for Peace Instagram and YouTube channels.

Meet the team 

The production team is made up of a group of talented individuals each with a unique role; Aladdin, Zaynab, Mazhar, Amet and Andrei and Kayla! We have come together as a team to produce a documentary film based on the history of Fight for Peace, as well as a BTS film of how the team worked to create this film.

Aladdin Benberna

Aladdin Benberna

“I’ve been brought onto the project as the Director. My role includes shooting, editing, and writing the story that’s being told on screen along with the team.”

Zaynab Alom

Zaynab Alom

“My role was the project & marketing assistant. Some of my responsibilities was to produce a marketing campaign for the showcase of our film as well as assist the team throughout the filming process; interviewing residents of the area and young people and also narrate the film.”

Amet Ndiaye

Amet Ndiaye

“My role was to do with logistics. Some of the responsibilities were booking meetings, writing emails, and searching in the archives for footage that can be used for the project.”

Andrei Gradinar

Andrei Gradinar

“My role was the videographer of the BTS film. Some of the responsibilities I had were to document the process, capturing the effort and dedication of the team that unfolded behind the scenes of making the main film. Also I had to take the interviews of the team members and obviously edit the film.”

Mazhar Alam

Mazhar Alam

“My role was the photographer, capturing and editing shots of the team working, be it in meetings or in shoots, to document what goes on behind the scenes. I also had to take headshots of each team member.”

Kayla Marie Troy

Kayla Marie Troy

“My role as Creative Lead was to select a strong team to deliver on the project, as well as provide support along the way to help inform the planning and production processes to ensure we stayed on track.”

The process so far

As a team we attended meetings and gathered our ideas and brainstormed what we thought would work best for this project. Once we were happy we had enough of a skeleton, we went out into the local community to interview people and spoke to some young champions who are current members at Fight for Peace about their experiences.

We then came back together to select archives that would help us tell our story, and decided what was missing from the film that we needed to add.

Interviews in our local area 

Once we’d finished brainstorming initial ideas for the film, the crew were off out into the community of North Woolwich to speak to some local residents to see what they knew about Fight for Peace.

Interviews with our members and staff 

We also had a chance to interview staff members who had memories of Fight for Peace for its early days as well as young champions who attend our services today!

What did we learn?

From these interviews we have learnt how the positive impact of Fight for Peace has had on the lives of current members and former members, a lot of whom have gone on to become staff. We also spoke to local residents about their experiences of Fight for Peace during our early days in 2007.

Through the process we learnt what works well and what doesn’t work so well, as well as everyone’s strengths and weaknesses – from this it allowed us to allocate different roles to everyone during our shoot days.

We also learned a lot through taking a look back at Fight for Peace during its early days in Luta pela Paz (Portuguese for Fight for Peace) Rio de Janeiro, and how our founder, Luke Downdey brought his vision from the favelas to London. With a wide range of Fight for Peace archives spanning over 24 years, our Director Aladdin was able to use these videos and images to help tell our story.

So now that that’s been explained what can you, the audience expect? 

A documentary full of stories and experiences from Fight for Peace members and residents of North Woolwich. A way for you to learn more about “The Bluebox in Newham: Home of Champions” and be part of our continuing journey!

What about the BTS?

And of course to end it with a good laugh as well as insight into the journey of documenting the culture and history of Fight for Peace.

Andrei Gradinar has been capturing the process through video including planning, shoots and some exclusive interviews with the crew. And photographer Mazhar Alam has been seizing the moment with some top tier images!

How can you get involved?

Well you can come down to Fight for Peace to see the exclusive showcase of our new film on Wednesday the 26th of June 2024, along with a special “in the making film”. There will also be a fun and interactive Q&A with our team of our up-and-coming media professionals.

We can’t wait to have you join and be with us during this journey!