Avon Valley Students Work with stars on Hate Crime awareness video

Talented students from The Avon Valley School and Performing Arts College have been involved in an exciting project which has seen Warwickshire County Council team up with both Coventry-based ‘The Voice’ star Letitia George and ‘Let It Shine’ star Jordan Charles, to create a powerful music single, called Love Instead of Hate (Give it a Try), which aims to show the true pain caused by hate crime.

The music single, which has been produced in Warwickshire by music producers Neil Williams and Chris Welch, aims to raise awareness of hate crimes and increase the public reporting of them through a new website, www.reporthatenow.com, launched after a recent study suggested 3 out of every 5 hate crimes are not reported to the police. The song, Love Instead of Hate, was initially inspired by poetry written by Stephen Crowshaw, a Nuneaton and Bedworth Police officer.

The music video produced by Warwickshire County Council to accompany the single was recorded at The Avon Valley School, Rugby, and features the acting talents of eight students all identified as talented in the performing arts.

Dan Phelan, Achievement Leader, said “This was a really exciting project, and something our students do not normally get to experience. As you will see in the video the shoot was quite messy as it involved black paint and colourful powder, however the students loved every minute of it. I’d like to say a huge thank you to Warwickshire County Council, the producers, and artists for involving us in this video, which I hope will be very successful”.

The school’s headteacher, Alison Davies, said “I am incredibly proud of the students who were involved in this project. I was fortunate to be able to watch the video for the first time with students who were involved and their reaction to the finished video was wonderful.”

View the video here.