A women’s suffrage campaigner from Stockport, Hannah Winbolt, is the inspiration behind a project to empower the next generation of young female campaigners.
The ‘Game Changers’ project, run by Manchester-based arts charity, Tandem Theatre, aims to inspire the campaigners of tomorrow through educational activities focused on the suffragist movement that used peaceful protest to campaign for women attain the right to vote and who were finally successful in 1918.
Tandem Theatre have created a series of educational activities and resources for children aged nine and over, and it includes workshop videos by local artists and activities on campaign methods, such as speech writing, creating posters and banners and letter writing and petitions. The resources have been released to mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month across Greater Manchester.
All the activities have been inspired in part by Hannah Winbolt, a suffragist from Stockport who is one of four women’s rights campaigners honoured at Suffragette Square in Stockport town centre, near the Redrock leisure complex.
Frances Nutt, artistic director at Tandem Theatre, who is running the Game Changers project, said:
“The project is about learning from female activists from the past to apply that learning to campaign for their futures – this is now more relevant than ever as women have been adversely affected by the pandemic.
“Crisis times such as these often uncover ways in which our society and culture—and its biases, imbalances and injustices—cause certain groups to be negatively and dramatically impacted – like women.
“So just like the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, we want young women in Greater Manchester to choose to challenge situations and make change. We help them become effective campaigners and leaders of the future and build self-esteem, social skills, confidence and raise aspirations with our new learning resources.
“We need to celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness against bias and take action for equality.”