Akuba aka Grace Quansah is the founder of Writing, Acting and Publishing Project for Youngsters (WAPPY), an Ealing-based organisation that has inspired children and young people through creative writing, reading, storytelling and performance since 2008. Here, she reflects on WAPPY’s long association with the late Benjamin Zephaniah following the group’s recent return to London’s Southbank Centre to celebrate his life and legacy.
Seventeen years after first taking children and families from Ealing to hear Benjamin Zephaniah perform at the Royal Festival Hall, twenty-one members of the Writing, Acting and Publishing Project for Youngsters (WAPPY) returned to the Southbank Centre last Friday (10 July 2026) to celebrate the life of a poet who became much more than an inspiration to our organisation.
When we first met Benjamin backstage in 2009, my six-year-old daughter Effie looked at this tall, dreadlocked stranger sitting in a chair, smiled innocently and asked, “Who are you?” Benjamin laughed heartily. That simple exchange became the beginning of a friendship that continued for many years.
Benjamin later helped promote WAPPY’s first anthology, The Soul of a Child, inspired our young writers through the Sweet Beats for Keats project, visited Ealing Central Library to launch Terror Kid, was interviewed by fifteen WAPPY children and affectionately described our wonderfully diverse youngsters as the “United Nations of Children.” In 2018 he contributed to our Arts Council England-funded anthology, Wonderful World of WAPPY.
Returning to the Royal Festival Hall last Friday therefore felt like coming full circle. Hosted by Lemn Sissay and Pauline Black, the evening was filled with laughter, music, poetry and memories, but it was Qian Zephaniah’s moving tribute that left the deepest impression. Recalling Benjamin’s final words, she shared the message he left for all of us: “Remember me. Now it’s your turn to spread the love.”
My sincere thanks go to Alex Solo, Jasmine Bayram, Julius and colleagues at the Southbank Centre for their generosity in helping WAPPY attend together, and to Qian Zephaniah for her continuing friendship.
Benjamin believed every child had a voice worth hearing. WAPPY will continue doing everything we can to ensure those voices are heard.
, an Ealing-based organisation that has inspired children and young people through creative writing, reading, storytelling and performance since 2008. Here, she reflects on WAPPY's long association with the late Benjamin Zephaniah following the group's recent return to London's Southbank Centre to celebrate his life and legacy.){kind=link}