We are delighted that Vauxhall-based theatre company, Duckie Ltd, has received £374,740 in funding over the next five years from the Big Lottery Fund (BLF) to support ‘The Slaughterhouse Club’, an arts-based project for homeless and vulnerable Londoners.

The Slaughterhouse Club is a workshop project with Thames Reach Hostels for homeless vulnerable Londoners struggling with alcohol and addiction issues and will run from October 2015 until October 2020.

Simon Casson, co-founder and producer at Duckie Ltd says: ‘This would not have been possible without the bold decision of Gulbenkian to fund our pilot project called at the time ‘Penny for the Guy’.

We are pleased to have played a role in piloting this project in 2011 when the Foundation supported Duckie through a research grant towards the development of an eventual spectacle at Vauxhall Spring Gardens on Bonfire Night on the subject of addiction, homelessness and male disenfranchisement. The ‘Penny for the Guy’ research project involved workshops and residencies at two hostels in Vauxhall, which treated participants as artists to develop performance, video and visual art works that reflect on their lives, their feelings and their desire to change.

The project is genuinely original, bringing theatrical showmanship to address a very sensitive social problem without compromising integrity. The Foundation supported the project as part of its participatory performing arts strand of work and to help develop a new model of engagement in community arts.

In 2013, we celebrated the transformative potential of participatory arts when we joined Duckie at ‘The Triumph of Pain’, a drop-in installed at the Southbank Centre, which showcased the project’s success and achievements.

BLF’s announcement to further support this exceptional project is warmly welcomed and shows what can be done when a small and large funder work together in the funding ecology for social change. Our early stage investment in this idea together with BLF’s next stage funding has the potential to address the long-term problems of those living on the margins of society and create sustainable social change.