Professor Yota Dimitriadi (NTF, Subject Lead for Computer Science Education, Deputy School Director of T&L, Chair of the Staff Disability Network)
My work on Reading Old Cemetery has given me the opportunity to take part in a range of wonderful community events. I work with Friends of Reading Old Cemetery, who are part of Econet, to promote my community-based ROCuP project (Reading Old Cemetery undertaking Project).
ROCuP includes the development of a website, an audio guide and a series of podcasts around Reading Old. Reading Old is an early example of a Victorian Garden Cemetery. Among its 120,000 permanent residents lies Mary Gordon Burnett (1858-1925), a fearless activist for the welfare and employment of blind people in Reading and Charles Dickens’s niece; Eliza Ratcliffe (1809-1884), an early suffragist and the only signatory from Berkshire of the 1866 petition for women suffrage that went to Parliament, Willie Wimmera (1841-1852) with a well-documented story about the reason this aboriginal boy ended up in Reading. There are 206 War Graves and two areas for paupers’ burials.
In July 2022 we presented work around Reading Old at the East Reading Festival and on 10th August MERL invited us to take part at their Care Family picnic. We adapted our focus and worked with families on emotions. We will share all the resources on the ROCuP website, which is to be launched at the end of September, but here is a sneak preview of the activities I did with the children. According to the data collected we learnt that ice-cream, nature & Pokémon make people happy! ‘The Box of smiles’ was a success & ‘the Wall of Tears’ contributed to chats about the world around us. We appreciate that activities like these have to be accompanied by wider levels of support and be part of a wider offer to talk about emotions and support self-regulation and awareness.
