Celebrating Scotland’s Suffragettes

Aim

Help us highlight the gallus women behind Scotland's radical history as we create engaging resources for young people across Scotland.

How many Scottish Suffragettes can you name? How many radical women activists? Did you know these histories are often left out of education?

People across Scotland – especially young people – don’t know these histories. We want to create Scottish Suffragettes playing cards – a deck of cards celebrating the amazing diversity of Scotland’s women activists, past and present. We’ll work with 50 schools and youth groups across Scotland to distribute ‘Protests & Suffragettes’ cards, zines and activity packs – for free!

Our Project

We want to highlight Scotland’s hidden history and the women who led important protests like Mary Barbour (1915 Rent Strikes), Helen Crawfurd (Suffragette), and Agnes Dollan (Women’s Peace Crusade). Their inspirational words and actions aren’t in most history books – but they should be.

We want to get young people excited about these mighty activists, and inspired to discover more about them.

Our aim is to distribute Protests & Suffragettes educational activity packs to 50 schools and youth groups across Scotland, so that these inspiring histories to reach as many young people as possible – and we need your help!

Each pack is designed for a classroom of 30 students and includes:

• 7 decks of Scottish Suffragettes playing cards: At the center of this project is a unique, playful deck of cards that features the name, image and information of over 30 Scottish Suffragettes and activists. These are high-quality bespoke cards, and young people will be able to engage in a fun, hands-on, ready to use game which encourages independent learning.
• 10 copies of our Rent Strikers & Suffragettes zine: The zine has striking visuals and highlights powerful words spoken by these women. Students can read and use them as inspiration to create their own.
• Lesson Plans, Activity Sheets, Powerpoints & Printable Resources: We’ve partnered with social enterprise Braw Talent to develop innovative, empowering lesson plans that align with the Curricula for Excellence and can be used in multiple areas (Art, Modern History, etc.). These additional resources will encourage teachers and youth workers to explore these women’s actions in fresh, meaningful ways. The professional educators and designers at Braw will develop these resources in consultation with teachers across Scotland.

Meet the Team

We are an artist-led, voluntary team (2013-present) of creative activists and local historians based in Scotland. The project is led by socially-engaged artist Dr t s Beall – who has been working in Govan/Glasgow and with these histories for over a decade. The project began as part of practice-based doctoral research at Univ. of Glasgow Theatre Studies in 2013. Seven years later it continues stronger than ever!

Our team includes Trish Caird, Ines Cavaco, Lydia Levett, Lesley Mitchell, Ian McCracken, Candace Thomas, Clare Thompson, and others who prefer to remain mysterious.

As a team we are constantly thinking about how to present our research in relevant, creative and meaningful ways in order to share these incredible women's names, achievements, and voices to as many people as possible.

Previous Projects

When working on a sister project in 2014 we created and distributed 300 decks of Trumps-style cards featuring Govan’s history – the 'Govan Trumps'. These were given to local schools and youth groups. We received amazing feedback from educators, the local community and young people alike, giving us confidence in our ability to bring this vision to life and the impact it will have on those who receive it. We are excited to celebrate Scotland's under-represented history – and some of the women who made it happen – by creating a new set of cards and distributing them to a national (and maybe even an international) audience.

What Your Money Will Do

The majority of the budget will go towards the production and printing of bespoke playing cards celebrating Scottish Suffragettes. We’ll also be working with creatives and professional educators to develop the activity packs – making sure they align with the Curriculum for Excellence and other educational targets.

A small percentage will go towards printing and postage for the rewards. We developed and produced the posters and zines as volunteers, so there is no production cost for those.

Delivery Timeline Update 

Delay in sending Suffragette Playing Cards (March 2021)

We've exceeded our initial fundraising targets – which is AMAZING!! Because of the generosity of our sponsors so far we’re able to expand the number of Scottish Suffragette Playing Cards to include 20+ more Scottish Suffragettes (YAY!) from 32 to 52. (You'll notice that our video says 'over 30 Suffragettes' – this is because we'd initially budgeted for a 'half-deck'). We're also going to be partnering with 100 schools, youth groups, and community centres across Scotland – rather than 50. All of this will require more time, as we find partners and develop bespoke educational materials.

So – we have taken the decision to extend the delivery time for the Playing Cards & Educational Packs – these will be delivered by 31 March 2021 rather than by end Dec 2020. Posters and Zines are not affected.

We realise this might be a disappointment for some of our donors and we will work with you to find a solution – we can of course send posters and zines as noted in the REWARDS – only the cards will be affected by this change. You can also request a refund.

This additional time will allow us to produce world-class, dynamic educational resources – and to do more focussed, in-depth research – and to find images for these remarkable women. (Finding images often takes a long time). We'll email everyone affected as soon as the Crowdfunder closes. 

THANK YOU AGAIN for your support!!

This project successfully funded on 15th September 2020