The Collective
Michael O'Meara trained as a primary school teacher and has worked in Tower Hamlets schools since 1983. In the early nineties he set up a charity The edIT Exchange to bring corporate funding into the classroom, to develop IT in Schools, as part of this he co-founded the UK Education Forum on Compuserve.
He specialises in digital technology and has been working as an IT consultant to HEC, London's Global Learning Centre, (formally known as the Humanities Education Centre), in Tower Hamlets since 1996.
As the Tower Hamlets Environmental Projects Teacher, he worked as part of the Tower Hamlets Waste Education Project, creating films, books, exhibitions and web-pages with young people, around an Environmental theme.
Michael teaches young people digital video skills and webpage design to create short film clips and webpages for HEC's website East End Talking of which he has been the project coordinator since it's inception. The website was created for and by children in Tower Hamlets, to showcase the variety and richness of living and learning, in the East End. The website regularly receives 2 million hits a term. The courses he runs for teachers on Digital Video have been described as “inspirational”.
Over the last two years Michael has been setting up and developing the Young Carers Service For Tower Hamlet's young carers
Michael set up Absolute Relaxation Productions, to showcase a collective of education specialists creating films, books, webpages and events around Development Education and the environment.
Bernard Hazell was born in Venezuela of Caribbean parentage and has been an actor and director in the USA, Caribbean and the UK for more than twenty years.
He founded the Immortelle Theatre Company in Port of Spain which has fifteen productions under its belt and participated in International Theatre festivals in Caracas and Barbados.
In that time, Bernard also worked as Workshop Leader for the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, founded by Derek Walcott.
He produced and directed several plays during his term as Artistic Director of the Café des Artistes, a vibrant venue that was the platform for cutting-edge Cabaret, Poetry, Comedy and Theatre in Trinidad.
In 2006, Bernard embarked on a new career, when he joined Absolute Relaxation Productions as their Creative Consultant.
He co-founded and was director of Amnesty International's Theatre Club in London.
Laura is a visual artist. She trained at St Martins School of Art, the Artec and graduated from Camberwell College of Arts with a degree in painting. She divides her time between her own studio work and practice, consultancy and strategic roles programming professional development events for the South London Women Artists and exhibitions for Teal Leaf Arts, an artist-led gallery and community space in SE London. She exhibits nationally and has work in private collections in the UK
She has a wealth of experience as a creative practitioner. She worked for over 15 years in the design and multimedia industry as an adult education tutor, illustrator, freelance professional and creative director.
Laura has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010
For more information and general enquiries, please contact Laura via her website: lauramoretongriffiths.com