WORCESTER Mela chiefs are celebrating after the community-based group won £48,000 of National Lottery Arts Council funding to deliver its ‘Melting Pot’ project.
The Melting Pot continues the Worcester Mela journey, where their hugely successful award winning Worcester Voices documentary left off.
It will highlight and explore the role of South Asian migrant settlers in the success of the city through an Industrial Heritage lens.
It aims to bring to life real stories from workplaces of the great industrial factories of Worcester, including Lea and Perrins, Metal Box, Metal Castings and The Royal Porcelain.
The project will span 18 months with a series of interactive workshops aiming to engage the workforce who worked in those factories and their families.
A test piece on the Worcester Mela stage at the Worcester Show on August 13 at Pitchcroft will be on offer before the final performance at Worcester Mela’s first annual festival in September 2024.
Organisers have vowed ‘a magical interactive tour of these stories bringing a feast of colour culture and creativity to unite the city’.
Worcester Mela chair Jabba Riaz said the team were ‘extremely proud and humbled’ by the latest boost.
“It gives a huge vote of confidence and acknowledges the great strides we have made as a small, dedicated team of volunteers,” he said.
“We’re also grateful to Severn Arts for their support over the last four years and are delighted they will continue to support us as we move forward in this project.
“We look forward to working with the cities communities again to co-create our project.”
