Communities invited to capture sounds of their life

Leicestershire county council have launched a local project, which encourages communities across the county to take part, by recording and submitting sounds that take place in their everyday lives.

This follows the national ‘Unlocking Our Sounds’ project which collects and preserves sound recordings from across the county’s diverse communities.

The project is in partnership led by the British Library, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, as well as obtaining ten regional hubs across the UK, the midlands hub is based at the University of Leicester.

The University of Leicester has commissioned Leicestershire County Council’s Participation Team to gather and create resources for this project. These resources will be added to an archive to be used by groups working with people who are living with dementia to trigger memories, conversations and pleasure.

This builds on the success of the Memory Plus project, that delivered multisensory reminiscence training and resources to care home settings. It mainly focused on sound-based activities that were collected through the Simply Sounds project and will now be made available digitally.

The team is now on a mission, calling for communities, groups and individuals across the county to create a two-minute recording of a sound that is meaningful to them and share it with the Simply Sounds project.

Richard Blunt, a county council cabinet member for the heritage, leisure and arts said:

“The project which gives people from all communities across Leicestershire the chance to share sounds which are important to them, while at the same time, helping to create a vital resource which will be a hugely beneficial legacy for the future.”

The sound recordings can be anything, as long as it’s important to the community, a group or individual. These can be related to a hobby, homelife, pets, nature, work or any other area of inspiration.

The project's aim is to capture the diversity of life in Leicestershire. Submissions from people whose first language is not English are particularly welcomed. 

If you would like to contribute to this project, images and sounds should be emailed to SimlySounds@leics.gov.uk or sent via WhatsApp on 07526928704.

More information in English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu and Polish is available at www.cultureleicestershire.co.uk/prjoects/simply-sounds/