The upcoming Notting Hill Carnival will see a team of young journalists reporting on the event, thanks to the Cocoa School of Journalism and Creative Arts. Students aged from five to 17 will be writing articles, conducting interviews, and recording videos, all of which will be published in the UK’s first Black children’s magazines, Cocoa Girl and Cocoa Boy. The publications were established by Serlina Boyd, who opened the after-school club in Beckenham in April this year.
The club runs courses in subjects including magazine creation, creative writing, and graphic design. Last Easter, it offered three days of sessions in which students wrote stories by hand. A weekly Sunday session on the intersection of fashion and journalism launched in May. In the summer holidays, pupils will design costumes for the parade at the Notting Hill Carnival.
The workshops cost £25 per pupil, but funded places are available for families with low incomes, through a “sponsor a place” scheme run by Boyd on LinkedIn. Half the places at the Easter workshops were funded by community donations. Boyd also runs free workshops in schools, to encourage more young people from underrepresented backgrounds to consider journalism.
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