During 2001/2002, The Save the World Club initiated a process of building community support and awareness of the problems of graffiti in Central Kingston. Based on qualitative research that focused exclusively on attitudes from children and youth using the Elm Road Playground, the year long project was completed on 8th September 2002.

The project brought together many elements of the holistic attitude needed to solve our urban problems. Solving graffiti with a permanent removal and empowering young people who are disadvantaged and who are potential offenders at the same time.

The project had many elements: a local homeworker artist stopped making greetings cards and used her artistic skills to design the basic space - a 48 square metre wall in the children's playground. The playground has drugs users, fights and too many children for not enough equipment. We ran 60 free mosaic workshops using over a tonne of ceramic tiles, more than 60% of which were from tiles due for landfill! The workshops were all oversubscribed - children and adults wanted very much to do something positive. We had 552 children!

The Save the World Club artists trained Sylwia Billingshurst, a homeworker and mother of two. Then all three artists acted as facilitators, allowing the true artistic nature of children to blossom. Mosaic is a wonderful medium and truly empowering as it is so easy to get an excellent result. The boys especially like to smash and break the tiles. The result is a truly astonishing piece of art. The reaction from the public and officials is amazing! Mostly they say "I never thought it could be this good!" The work has become part of our local history, it is already the largest piece of art in the borough.

The grand opening celebrations were organised by the children themselves. A group of 29 street kids (aged between 8 and 18) who had no summer holiday created a show, wrote to the Mayor, put on refreshments, and learnt about events in the process. They all had new ownership of their playground, and new found respect for their environment. When their photographs were in the local papers they were floating around the streets they were so excited!

The graffiti problem is solved, literally for the next twenty years on that wall anyway. Children haven't even destroyed the other nearby wall either since it went up. All the tiles are completely washable if any graffiti is visible. Art made by the community doesn't get ruined, it gets noticed! Our next job is Kingston railway station exit to be followed by ten similar projects in the Kingston area and ten further railway stations!

The £19,800 project was funded with small grants by the Thames Community Foundation/Children's Fund Local Network, Awards for All, and a RBK local authority grant using environmental improvements money.