Someone Out There

There’s a kid out there with something to say who is being stopped from saying it. Life has put a gag in her mouth as cruel as a kidnapper’s calloused hand. Some schoolyard fear, some imagined dread, some all too real and paralysing shame leaves her diminished and pigeon-toed, staring at the floor in abject silence.

I want to remove that suffocating rag, to lead her out to a place of safety,a place where her voice can find its wings, where she can talk, and learn to fly. I want to be there with everyone watching on the day she finally speaks her truth, and I want them to hear what she has to say, because she is a woman who can change the world.

William Ayot

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Our Aims

In Performance we are committed to increasing access to the oral tradition by establishing artistic excellence as a benchmark, raising the profile of neglected arts, and satisfying the public’s increasing hunger for live performance.

We are dedicated to improving standards of delivery amongst poets and storytellers and to legitimizing storytelling as an art-form in its own right. In Public Speaking we seek to improve public discourse by promoting eloquence, civility and authentic delivery.

In Education we are determined to establish oracy as an essential requirement and precursor to literacy; to ensure that all children in the UK receive a solid education in public speaking; and to balance the current gender divide in educational attainment by furthering oracy in boys.

In Adult and Executive Education we work with individuals, groups, employers, employees, and the unemployed, leaders and followers to improve communications, in all sectors, to the betterment of society as a whole.

In Outreach we are dedicated to the proposition that story, metaphor and fair speech are keys to individual well-being and social cohesion. In community work we seek, through the cultivation of oral histories, debating, and community conversations, to improve the quality of life for all including the disadvantaged and unheard.

In Research and Archival work we seek to preserve and celebrate all that is good in the oral tradition, to prevent the loss of valuable material and knowledge, and to record great performances and individual stories for posterity