Viviane Williams
From as early as she can remember, Viviane Williams has understood the importance of trying to do good in the world. “My parents are from West Africa, and they’ve often raised funds through the church for people back in their home of Togo,” she says.
“I’ve always been around that and wanted to do community initiatives and voluntary work myself. I’ve done things like Orange RockCorps, where you volunteer in exchange for free gig tickets, which was excellent,” she says.
It was just before Viviane started her MA in Creative Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths in 2009, that she had the idea for her project, the Wake Up Campaign.
She had just spent three months volunteering in a small village called Kasapin in Ghana, with 16 other young people from the UK, teaching design and helping building a library.
“It was a fantastic experience, but, after a lifetime of seeing negative images of Africa and its people in Western media, I was struck by the positivity I saw,” explains Viviane.
“These people weren’t having awful lives, they weren’t poverty stricken. We were just adding a bit extra to what they already had. And it got me thinking about the developing world, as well as the developed world and how social issues are represented in society,” she says. “I wanted to challenge those representations and get people thinking about important issues.”
During her MA, she founded her project – the Wake Up Campaign - and put on a series of events aimed at creating awareness of social issues. The biggest being a clothes swapping weekend at London’s prestigious Battersea Arts Centre.
Material values
“My thesis was about material culture and identity in the world’s southern hemisphere, so I held the event to highlight the impacts of disposable fashion on individuals and the world,” Viviane explains.
“I filled the place with mirrors, images, posters and exhibits designed to encourage visitors to think about why they buy stuff. As well as the clothes swapping stands, there was also a really popular area where people could pay to have their clothes and shoes customised. People were broadening their minds and having a great time too,” she says.
Viviane’s projects have received much support from established brands, whether they be fashion labels, charities or businesses. For the clothes swapping event, she managed to pull in some well-known ethical clothing brands such as People Tree, Izzy Lane and From Somewhere.
Other Wake Up initiatives in the project’s short history have included a pop-up shop in Brixton Market and an art exhibition at Croydon’s Clocktower in association with Christian Aid. Photographs displayed were taken by people involved in Christian Aid’s work so that visitors could understand more about aid overseas.
Viviane, now 25, also regularly does talks, shows documentaries and runs social networking campaigns to highlight important issues.
One to watch
To date, her attempts to engage people have been praised and noted by a number of organisations. In July 2010 she was given an UnLtd Level 1 grant of £2,000 for the Wake Up Campaign, and in October 2010 she was listed as one of Striding Out’s Future 100 – a competition which names the people who are expected to be the stars of social enterprise in the future.
The Striding Out competition typically spots the most driven youngsters of a generation and it’s no surprise that Viviane is among them. She is always on the go. This month, she will start a new full-time role in the design department of a perfume company, while she continues working on her project.
Viviane will be busier than ever, but the young entrepreneur is determined to spend any spare time developing Wake Up further. “This year I’m thinking about trying to work with schools and colleges on paid initiatives, and I will also be taking on some volunteers to help me move things forward,” she reveals.
While there are many thousands of young people who care deeply about social issues in the UK and beyond, only a precious few are making their mark in the way that Vivian is. She believes part of this is because organisations have not yet wised-up to how they can harness the power of what young people can do.
“Projects like Orange RockCorps are brilliant, but we need more ideas like that to engage younger generations,” she says passionately. “There needs to be a dialogue with youngsters and an understanding of what keeps them stimulated and engaged in order to get the people of tomorrow more switched on to the their communities and the world.”