Holi @ Barking 2016

Dear Friends you were amazing today! Wishing you and your families more happiness every day! Happy Holi!!!!

Holi Party was so colorful and fun filled, it was all possible because of everyone who attended the event today and special special who contributed their bit to make this event as we planned and a great success:

Cheers to the Leader of council, Darren Rodwell who is a true cultural diversity champion and his events team Julia Pearson , Sarah and team who made sure they support us, guide us to give permission and all information needed, as we were doing Holi for first time in Barking, an outdoor event in the park!
Many thanks to our sponsor Visa and Migration' ,http://www.visaandmigration.com/ who genuinely wanted to support our community event! It's a very kind act and we will be always thankful for their readiness to support us. So make sure you all use their quality service when needed
Thanks Pooja Nikhil Patel from Events2Empower for arranging the stalls to empower people and also generated fund for the event! You are a star
Thanks Narinder Singh, Nagaprashati Tadikonda (Gully restaurant) , Nidhi for your great stalls of Food , drinks and Clothing. More details will be posted about them soon for everyone's reference!
Telangana Development Forum has always been helpful and supportive to all our events and activities. Thanks Sravan Kumar Goud Bairu for arranging the Marquee inspire of your busy schedule recently and Jaya Sheela Nama for quickly suggesting to help us . It was our pleasure to have most of your team at the event today
 Super thanks Dinesh and Yogesh for helping us with setting up the Marquee and the colors. You have given away your fun time to help us manage things
Thanks Kalyani Parimala, Karunasri Kothwal , Venkat Naresh Rachakonda,Raghu Jakkula, Dennis for offering yourself to help  things happened because you said you are there to support. Thankyou!
Cheers Atchuta and Divya Tadikonda for volunteering when we were in real need of a helping hand!!!
Sankha Biswas your photography magic will make this event be remembered forever... Thanks for being always ready to click these moments for the community!
Cheers Srinath for coordinating the DJ, the marquee and filling lots of gaps which I or the team miss to see in enthusiasm of making things happen, you finish it with your intelligence 

Community Concord is very proud to have such good souls to make a difference! All your positive thoughts are infectious and makes all our events such a great success! Cheers and Thankyou 

Sankranthi 2016

Annual Catchup 2015

We loved being at ' The Barking Food Court' for our Annual Catchup!!! Verity, you n your team were great host and we couldn't leave without making you two dance... and you amazed us with your Bollywood moves ;))

Our friends at Community Concord love dancing! We are not professional dance troop and we are not to be judged for our performances as we dance for our own happiness and it creates positive vibes which are infectious :))

Did you anywhere or anytime (UK , India or anywhere in world) see NEIGHBOURS dancing together every single month and performing together at various events/platforms? It's not a common or easy thing to do. All this needs a healthy mental attitude to accept differences and appreciate similarities! You are going great job and thank you for believing in Community Concords mission and working towards well being of our community in Barking!!!

Karwa Chauth 2015

It was treat to watch the ceremony as most of us have performed it for first time and those who have done it before have encouraged all others to comfortably celebrate together what else can we ask for in the community than to support and encourage!

Cheers to all who attended the beautiful evening of Karwa Chauth. Everyone looked so gorgeous/handsome and were excited to be part of the ceremony 

Community Concord has conducted events, workshops of its own and also been part of many partnership events and this time it was supporting someone's passion with our skills and community spirit. We supportedPooja Nikhil Patel from Event2Empower who had a creative thought to celebrate Karwa Chauth on the town square inside the tent with candles  she loves to empower women so organises events with stalls and entertainment. Thanks Pooja, we had enjoyed the ceremony.

Thanks to councillor Cllr Laila Butt for your continuous encouragement and support!

Beautiful puja thali were made available by Priyanka Varshney and Priya had narrated the story of Karwa Chauth by her own initiative and everyone enjoyed it so much.

Bathukamma 2015

Our new attempt to bring Dance, Music & Drama together to spread a thought of how positive thinking is possible by practice of Bhagwad Gita or any Holi Book

****Kalpavrikha Musical****
An entertaining on stage dramatics with dance & music by locals. It has mesmerising human formations of real life examples taken from Bhagwat Gita along with beautiful narration from the holi book.

Thanks to the team Sarita Reddy for directing the concept, Priyanka Varshney for the Choreography, Sunil for the voice over, Dheeraj Varshneyfor the visuals and all meanings guided over phone from India by my Mom ;)) and all the participants Kalyani Parimala, Kothwal Karunasri,Priya Rai,Rajani IPriya Thakasi,Shubhangi Shingade) and all Kids. Well done team for making this thought into creative reality!!

Thanks to TDF team Sravan Kumar Goud Bairu, Jaya Sheela Nama for giving a platform to showcase our first attempt to make a difference

Ganesh Festival 2015

Good Morning All!

Any event's success is the number of happy smiling faces you see during the event and our Ganesh festival was super successful as we were surrounded by only smiling souls throughout the season!!!!!!

Community Concord sincerely wishes that this positive energy we have received from the art and culture gives us all the strength to remain mentally strong in every phrase of life!!!

Term Break Fun day

Term Break Fun-Day hosted by Events2Empower was a great day for kids to exhibit their talents and for parents it's moments of happiness to see their children at their best!!!

Community Concord was part of the event as well, we  arranged  for 'Interview Lounge' for children to interview their parents and captured the dynamics between a parent and the child. We even clicked pictures and made a photo biography on them! 

The event was on Saturday 22nd August. It was great oppurtunity to everyone to Make the best of this Term Break Fun Day!

Indian Independence Day Celebrations

Patriotic Moment for Members of Community Concord!

On the occasion of 69th Indian Independence Day, We the Community Concord group feels proud to salute our nation by arranging the cultural events at Tavistock Square, central London at Indian Flag hosting ceremony organised by Prasav Bharat. Thanks Sravan Kumar Goud Bairu (TDF) and Nagender for inviting Us

Retro Bollywood - Asian Mela

Songs that make our feet tap the floor and attires that take you to golden era of our Indian Bollywood cinema ... --->> RETRO Bollywood Style was performed by local residents of Barking at the Asian Mela , 08 August 2015 at Barking Park

 On stage were some lovely Bollywood moves by ladies, fun filled dance by kids and romantic cute couples dancing!!!!

there were also Indian classical music by artist Padmini Karamcheti Pasumarthy and Indian classical dance by performer Swapna Srinivas.

Lots of free workshops of Performing arts and crafts hosted by Community Concord and organised & facilitated free to Barking Residents by the 50th Anniversary Team to celebrate the 50 years of Barking and Dagenham. Lots of planning and passion to entertain has gone into this event by the council and the supporting groups like ours (Community Concord), it will be wonderful if you can come and be part of the celebrations!.

The person behind Creative craft of Summer lanterns is Devi Jammula, she has contributed a lot of effort in making the handmade clay and conducting craft lantern workshop at the event which was given away for free from the council to all kids who attended the workshop!!

We planning for Summer Lantern FREE workshop for adults & kids. All thanks to Devi for making it an interactive session today!!

Watch The Performance Vedio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=565dpbWTyM4

Flash Mob

Hello Friends,

Here is the video of Flash Mob as promo of 'Colors of Time' (at Barking Station) and as performance at 'One Borough One Community event' on 25th July! A wonderful event! Amazing family outing, perfect venue!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oha840wpuGc

Special thanks to Darren Rodwell , members of council, other supporting organizations and 50th Anniversary Event Team for planning such wonderful concepts to celebrate where we live!

Many thanks for all the local residents and friends for participating in the Flash mob and encouraging the community spiirt!! Don't miss to watch the Kids in the video, well done kidos!!

Cheers to Priyanka Varshney for sharing her passion for dance with all of us and teaching us every day since last 2 weeks and with same smiling face throughout!!! Thanks buddy!!!

Also cheers to Vasanth Kumar for teaching us dances too with fullon enthu, and taking care of technical part of mixing songs so smoothly!! 

Thanks to Moumita Biswas and family for arranging all our logistics for rehearsals every day!! And many thanks our very supportive friend Sankha Biswas for capturing moments with emotions! Participants and families are captured at their best, which shows that 'seeing the better side of things will make life more colorful'!!!!! 

Thanks Venkat Naresh Rachakonda for arranging music (at critical timing) and for the lovely video editing!!

We have received many messages on our whtsapp group complimenting our works by 'Community Concord' and how it has made a difference in their routines! Many thanks for sharing your experiences, we truly felt happy!

Cheers,

Community Concord Team

(Deepa, Aruna, Meenakshi, Harika, Kalyani, Kinnera)

Musical Fashion Show

Thank you girls for making this thought of 'Musical Fashion Show at Folk Festival' come true!

You have done wonderfully well by crossing obstacles which you did not even realise had existed ( but we CC team knew hehe )

1. You guys making a beautiful jewellery out of CLAY which you might have never touched before!! 

2. based on online instructions with just Text messages as way of communication

3. Coming forward to do fashion show ( Lol I never expected at least one will be ready for it but seeing your confidence gave us confidence that we can do it!)

Thanks to our teachers:

Harika Mogudampally (Terracotta Jewellery)

Kinnera Srinivas (Clutch Making)

Cheers to volunteers who come forward to do modelling (this was another challenge we were struggling but yet again we had happy supporting friends who made it a great show!)

The level of confidence and attitude shown on the ramp was no less than a professional models

Hey Women - You all are amazing!

'Community Concord' aims to bring art n culture closer to where you live so that You Do what you love doing and the happiness inside you will give you strength to deal with general routines easily! 

Cheers ,

Community Concord Team

Deepa, Aruna, Meenakshi, Harika, Kalyani, Kinnera

50th ANNIVERSARY - BARKING FOLK FESTIVAL

Very very very beautiful performances friends!!!!

All your efforts and dedication was shown during the performance! Cheers to all participants of Folk Festival.

Special thanks to Council for thinking of us and getting us involved in our boroughs celebrations! Thanks to library staff and studio3art for their support. Thanks to YOU the audience for cheering us.

Big Thankyou to Teachers. Great act of kindness to share their talent by the Teachers:

Mayuri (Assami, Rajasthani)

Sheela (Punjabi, Telugu, Laavni)

Swapna & Meenakshi

( Onam by Kids)

Harika (Gujarati)

Vasanth ( Tamil)

Few talented individuals like Sankha for photography skills share n help us capture great moments and also many thanks to parents for being so so supportive.

Thank you everyone for believing in Community Concord n coming forward to be part of the art n culture programs.

Warm Regards 

Community Concord Team

Deepa , Aruna, Meenakshi, Harika, Kalyani, Kinnera

Workshops :

Clutch Purse Making

Beautiful Terracota Jewelry Making

Terracotta jewellery which was sought to be one of the Ancient art has now turned out to be the

modern Trend. An appropriate refined clay is shaped to make eco friendly jewellery that makes 

exotic dressing style and it can be worn both traditional or trendy.

- Learn about Clay preparation

- Designing impressions on clay for fine finishing

- Easy Clay baking methodology

- Applying appropriate colours on baked clay

-Learn basic jewellery making techniques

THE BIG LUNCH - Family Cricket

Community Concord team helps locals to get involved in Art & Culture and through such events like 'The Big Lunch' we raise the community spirit for the emotional wellbeing of the locals!

The Big Lunch is a very simple idea from the Eden Project. The aim is to get as many people as possible across the whole of the UK to have lunch with their neighbours annually on the first Sunday in June in a simple act of community, friendship and fun.

In 2015, We 'Community Concord' group feel proud to conduct this popular and loving event in Barking with an Indian twist to the lunch with Family Cricket match and yummy Indian food Vegetable Biryani.

Our special thanks to event sponsors who made it possible- ASDA, Barking branch (All the refreshing Refreshments smile emoticon, KOLACHI resturant (Yummy delicious Biryani with raita loved by all families smile emoticon,Barking and Barking Learning Centre (All the required permissions, tables, chairs and encouragment as always)

Volunteers Day Celebration

We help locals get involved in arts and here are some of the popular events we have taken the pride to encourage, teach and make community residents step up to participate. Thanks to all the organizations who give us the opportunity and support.

KARAOKE Live (for CHARITY FUN DAY, 2015)

It was a fun day as we participated in Charity Fun day conducted by the Barking Library. We helped raise fund of £40.50 through live Karaoke and loads of masti!!! 

Holy Hungama, 2015

On popular demand we planned for a Holi Celebration for all of us here at Barking!!!! We planned it in last minute mainly for kids (our future generation) to know Indian culture and fun behind our traditions....  

Womens Day Glass Painting, 2015

In your busy routine its not quite often that you get time to paint! our Community Art Workshop on 13th March and we made sure every participant created an artwork that occupies a special space in your heart and home! All artworks were exhibited in 'Salute the Women' Art exhibition at Barking Library.

Valentines Cake, 2015

Local talented experts have baked the beautiful Red Velvet Cake, process guidance, tips tricks all ready!

All our activities aim for emotional well being of community and glad to have success after success in each activity! we measure success by hearing a sense of happiness and satisfaction of contribution in our participants hearts!

Lovely Bakers -Participants of Online Community Baking event on 13th Feb! I hope everyone enjoyed the making of cake and creative process of decorating it. Fantastic Spirit!!! Very well done! Once again many thanks for enthusiastic participation and efforts of local residents!

Sankranti Festival, 2015

Festive Special Food, if tasted during the festival is believed to be auspicious, holy, logically healthy or be whatever the reasoning... We all love to eat delicious food and celebrate the festive moments with family and friends!! So, We created 'Festive Special Meal Pack' just for local residents. The Meal Pack is MULTI Cultural, HOMEMADE Food, prepared by Team of master chef contest winners from LOCALs (Cooking Lovers) just for you.

We did it yet again! Thanks to the Ladies who exhibited their cooking talents and Cheers to those booked your Sankranthi Festive Meal Packs, you all have contributed to the goal of 'Engaging Families and Inspiring Women'.

SANTA coming Home, 2014

Santa and his reindeers surprised many kids in Barking today! Thanks for all your warm welcome. We are glad that we could create a Santa moment for your kid! Kids were soo excited to have Santa around. The little one said 'Bye Santa see you' soo cute!! And Santa was served Indian Dinner (Biryani, Lol (mince pie to Biryani) thanks Barking for such warm welcome! 

It's time to go back to North Pole with such sweet great memories!! HO HO HO!

Diwali Dhamaka, 2014

GRAND CELEBRATION OF DIWALI 2014!
DIWALI DHAMAKA for you!
Here are activities local residents engaged for Diwali!
*Children Talent Show
*Spotlight on Local Talents (Grownups)
*Rangoli Exhibition (Grownups)
*Coloring & Art by Kids Exhibition
*Master Chef Competition (Desserts/Sweets Indian or International)
*Cultural Fashion Show for Women
*Diwali & Purpose of Celebration (Art of Drama by Kids)
*Stalls by Locals
And much more to come & enjoy with your family & friends!

Ganesh Festival 2014

Another year of  festive memories in our community. 

2014 was our third year of Ganesh Festival celebrations in Barking.. Yeppy! (HATRICK!). 

I must admit, its not as easy as it sounds in organizing and planning our cultural events in a foreign land. 

It is only possible with all the support and selfless dedication from local residents!

QUICK RECAP of sweet memories we all had together:

* FREE INDIAN BREAKFAST ( All thanks to the local residents who volunteered to contribute tasty Idli, spicy Chutney,soft Puris, hot aloo curry & delicious Jelebi 

* TALENT MELA (Stalls to showcase all local talents.)

* CULTURAL EVENING (great performances by cute little children & beautiful ladies, cultural gyan bits, friendly anchors, few councillors presence, & lucky few who won in lucky dip

A platform for local resident women and children who have their origins in a foreign country. Such residents, often, either feel isolated in a foreign land or experience a reverse cultural shock when they go on holiday to their home country, leading to social isolation in at least one side. 

We are building a cultural bridge between generations and sorting an identity crisis through a self help process. This is accomplished by running short duration workshops with dance, music, drama and linguistic sessions.

A unique opportunity to build self- esteem and emotional well being.

Workshop participation opportunities are made available and made use by more than 60 local resident women and 30 children.

 A platform for local resident women and children who have their origins in a foreign country. Such residents, often, either feel isolated in a foreign land or experience a reverse cultural shock when they go on holiday to their home country, leading to social isolation in at least one side. 

We are building a cultural bridge between generations and sorting an identity crisis through a self help process. This is accomplished by running short duration workshops with dance, music, drama and linguistic sessions.

Navaratri Dhamal, 2014

Hello Friends, It was DUSSERA CULTURAL FEST DAY.

All were set for Ram Leela Drama by Kids, Devi Avatars by resident ladies, Kanya Pooja, Kids Dandiya Masti, Food Stall and more...

I must say, though there might be many dandiya nights happening around but one at Barking is the best as it had that 'our community, our neighbours, our friends, safe atmosphere' and no one hesitated to tap their feet to the beats!! Well done everyone, feeling proud to be part of such energetic community!

Navaratri Dhamaal, 2013

An evening of Traditional Indian Music and Dance to celebrate NAVRATRI DHAMAL 2013 in our very own Barking!

Ganesh Utsav, 2013

Ideas were explored , Talents were exposed And the outcome was Ganesh Utsav 2013! Before we move on to our next event..Lets cheer the Team for the hard work and passion!HIP HIP HURRY!! HIP HIP HURRY!! HIP HIP HURRY!!