5 Minutes with Jack Crozier
Jack is a member of the Camden Covid-19 Charity Fund with his fellow panel members, he will award £120,000 to grassroots community initiatives working with unemployed and under-employed people in Camden. We interviewed him about the work he’s doing.
Hi Jack, how long have you been living in Camden?
I’m quite a recent resident, it’s only been 2 years. I wanted to live somewhere where it’s all happening, there’s loads of people around and I just love it.
What’s your favourite thing in Camden?
I go along the canal to bars and cafes, I also work in the Camden side of the West end and I like going to little galleries down there. You can’t go wrong with the British Museum, it’s pretty cool.
How was lockdown for you?
Not ideal I work in the arts, so professionally it was a disaster. The announcements of theatres shutting down came before the announcement of a furlough scheme, I was covered by the scheme, but a lot of my colleagues weren’t. There was a lot of uncertainty for me and my colleagues. It’s been the constant unknown that’s got to me, constantly looking at what might happen next week, but without really knowing anything.
How did you get involved in working with Camden Giving?
As soon as lockdown happened and I new the furlough scheme would cover me, I started looking around for ways that I could help the local community. I think Camden Giving popped up on my Twitter feed and it ticked all the boxes.
So far the experience has differed from what I expected, in a good way, there’s so much trust placed in us panellists, it’s really refreshing that Camden Giving takes the approach that we know what’s best for them and it’s completely put in our hands, it’s more than I expected and it’s a really good thing.
What do you hope will change as a result of the grants you will award?
We find ourselves in a time where there’s a massive disparity between the very rich and the very poor, there are so many organisations picking up the slack where the stare ends and the number of people needing that support is growing, but the charities are strapped for cash. These grants are so important, they’ll provide opportunities for people that otherwise wouldn’t have those opportunities.
Looking at the sector I work in, the people that work there tend to be from upper and middle class backgrounds, this sector isn’t representative of the UK in general and certainly isn’t representative of Camden. The reason for this is that at the entry level people come in to the arts through unpaid internships. It’s utterly ridiculous that’s the main pathway in to the industry, it’s very archaic. I’d love us to give grants to organisations who are challenging the status quo on unpaid internships or to charities who are supporting more accessible ways in to the arts sector. It seems screamingly obvious that this would address the lack of diversity in the sector.
The pandemic has forced organisations to be more creative, I’m hoping that this will kickstart a creative and ambitious movement of ideas, because unemployment is so complex, this creativity is going to be needed.
The Covid-19 Charity Fund was originally created to support people being most hit by the pandemic and the charities that support them. So far, a diverse panel of 7 Camden residents awarded grants to 75 projects.
Round 3 of the Covid-19 Charity Fund is made possible because of generous contributions from individuals and Google UK.