Oxjam 2011

Oxjam is Oxfam's month-long music festival. It ran all through October with hundreds of events around the UK, all organised by volunteers who know and love their local music scene, all raising money to save lives around the world.

 The last couple of weeks have been epic for Oxjam Music Festival following four very successful launch gigs featuring the likes of Fatboy Slim, Kissy Sell Out, Ghostpoet, and Brett Anderson.

The events were noticed by all sorts of media and broadcast groups as well as various publications ranging from Bliss to Al Jazeera, and of course the well known music scene veterans NME , MTV and Mixmag.

Mail Online journalist Edward Elliott gave a great account of his experience at an Oxjam launch gig where he left the Dalston shop very happy with a second hand purple megaphone. The Evening Standard gave Oxjam a strapping headline "Sound check: Oxjam brings music with meaning" which was exactly what Oxjam hoped to deliver.

Oxjam events happened (and are still happening) all over the UK, and this year Peterborough got in on the act with a Club Music Night called Elovation hosted by DJ Phrendly a.k.a. Phil Welch. The event promised  and delivered - a night of Upfront Dance and Massive Bass, for clubbers to let their hair down, invent some new dance moves, or just stand there nodding their head in appreciation of the music. The event came with the warning that it would not be the usual church disco, and given the size of the bass speakers and the volume of the music the warning was justified!

Phil, who attends KingsGate Community Church loves organising events, particularly ones that get church congregations mixing with their local communities. In addition to this year’s Oxjam event Phil has DJ’d for the last two years at KingsStock and his passion for this genre of music and connecting church to their neighbourhoods has inspired him to pursue his next project which will be DJ Tutoring.

Phil had a “misspent” youth on the club scene; however since becoming a Christian he has refocused his energies and love of clubland music to make a difference for good.

“It was great to be involved in a more ‘legal’ event than those I used hang around!”

Those attending the event had a great night and raised over a hundred pounds  for Oxjam, who since the first festival in 2006, have raised more than £1.5 million in total for the work they do. That’s enough to buy 13,000 emergency shelters; 60,000 goats or 900 classrooms. Oxfam, one of the best known charitable organisations, is a vibrant global movement of dedicated people fighting poverty, saving lives and developing projects that put poor people in charge of their lives and livelihoods as well as campaigning for change that lasts.

It is thanks to local people with a vision that Oxjam happens. If you want to run an Oxjam event or find out more, click here.