Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Haringey's amazing young people

The 4th Spirit of London awards are to be held the O2 Arena on Monday December 10th 7.00pm and promises to be a glittering affair, but the real stars of the “Community Youth Oscars” are the young people themselves who have remarkable and inspirational stories.

Here we profile three of the finalists, all from Haringey, starting with a talented cartoonist who creates his own comic books.

Zoom Rockman
Age: 12
Category: Media

12 year old Zoom Rockman has been drawing, writing and publishing his own comic since he was 8 years old. He started out selling to his classmates at school events and his local newsagents, he’s now got a wide range of London stockists including the ‘Cartoon Museum’ in Bloomsbury and the internationally respected ‘Gosh! Comics’ in Soho, not to mention the splendid Big Green Bookshop.

This Summer he was flown out to South Korea to the Bucheon International Cartoon Festival for the second year running on an all expenses paid trip to do a speech in front of an audience of approx. 500 people Including the Lord Mayor.

He has been described by the Financial Times as ‘the future of British Comics.’

Tottenham Song
Age: 13-16
Category: Young Heroes

Following the riots of Tottenham in 2011, the community, especially the young people, have had to come to terms with what had happened to their area. There was a lot of damage to the reputation and perception of young people. Tottenham, since the riots has experienced a lot of division between different parts of the community (police; youth; community and so on)

A group of students at Gladesmore school decided to do something to firstly combat the negative stereotypes of Tottenham's young people but also to lift the spirits of the community. They created a song called Everybody Dreams, which entered the charts during summer 2012.

Doccia Apparel
Age: 21
Category: Fashion

As part of their A-Level Business course, Emeka Oparah, Jade Griffith and Derek Nyarko all 21 from Tottenham conceived their idea for a clothing label. Convinced the idea was more than just a coursework project, they saved their own money from part time jobs to formulate it into an actual company in April 2011.

Currently all at University, the trio have gone from strength to strength, opening their first store in Camden.

They have been mentioned in various fashion blogs, as well as securing high profile supplier contracts.