2007 will be KLC's 25th year providing career focused courses in Design. To help celebrate reaching this special milestone, we thought it would be particularly rewarding to team up with a charity. We wanted to find an organisation which had a real synergy with KLC, and it was therefore decided that the charity should be linked to education. It was also important to us that it was a small charity, where we felt our contribution could make a real impact. With advice and help from Kate Cavelle, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility UK at Deutsche Bank, we have teamed up with the children’s charity Place2Be, which provides highly effective in-school counselling for troubled children, who are mainly of primary school age.
In light of this, over the coming months our Interior Design Diploma students will be working on a challenging research based design project, which we hope will help Place2Be gain crucial government funding. At the same time, our Landscape Design Diploma students are being given the opportunity to redesign the extensive grounds of a primary school in Southwark, which is closely linked with Place2Be. We will also be running a community project for our Certificate and Open Learning students, in which students from our affiliate schools in Moscow and Tokyo will also be invited to take part.
In addition, we will be running a painting competition for children at Place2Be schools. The aim being to paint a picture of themselves at 25 years old. We will also be giving fundraising lectures, culminating in a series of inspirational talks from top designers at Decorex, where we will have a stand displaying examples of the work students have produced on Place2Be projects. Some of this work will also be on display at our annual Exhibition on Wednesday 4 July.
On Tuesday 3rd July we are giving a very special Gala Evening for friends of KLC and Alumni. Invitations will be sent out nearer the time and a number of high profile people in the industry have already pledged their support.
The following short video features our recent Gala Evening, which was in support of the children's charity The Place2Be and was part of the school's 25th Anniversary celebrations.
This was filmed for www.designlife.tv, an exciting new on-line channel dedicated to the interior design trade, allowing instant access into the latest trends, products and events.
