The Tayo Situ Foundation (TSF), established in memory of the late Mayor of Southwark, recently invited nominations of exceptional young people for its inaugural awards scheme. The scheme seeks to recognise achievements by young people (aged 16 to 25) in a variety of fields including (but not limited to) academic, sporting, and active  citizenship or volunteering. In keeping with the vision of the late Tayo Situ, the TSF is keen to foster leaderships skills in whatever capacity they are currently exercised by the young and invited nominations from the College for anyone we felt were deserving of public recognition.

MA Fine Arts (Visual Arts) course leader Rebecca Fortnum put forward this nomination:

I would like to draw your attention to the achievements of a young artist and architect, James Mitchell. James, originally from Scotland, has been at Camberwell College of Arts on the MA Fine Art course since the start of this academic year.  His enthusiasm and team spirit makes him a very valuable member of the year group. However, he is most remarkable in that, wishing to use his skills to help others, he co-founded Orkidstudio a non-profit humanitarian design organisation whose aim is to benefit children and young people through innovative and sustainable architecture, art and design. The charity has completed two construction projects to date for orphanages and schools in Uganda (2008) and Bolivia (2010-11). Today James has gone to Zambia to spend his Easter break working on a new project near Chingola, Zambia, which will include the design and build of new classroom and communal facilities for the Mutende Children’s Village – not a bad achievement for a 23 year old! He has energised and inspired other students into joining him on this venture and he really is a wonderful example of the kind of spirit that the Tayo Situ Foundation wishes to celebrate.

The winners were announced at a Gala Awards Ceremony on Friday 11 May in Southwark Council’s Tooley Street headquarters. There were four special awards given on the night and James won one of them. James is pictured above with the previous Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Lorraine Lauder.