Fresh from the recent Healthy City Design 2025 in Salford, Jayda David, projects and youth consultant at Live + Breathe, shares how community-led creativity can drive cleaner air and healthier cities from South London to Salford.
Since 2022, our South London movement has been calling for cleaner air and climate justice from the ground up, proving that creativity and collaboration aren’t just cultural tools, but catalysts for policy change and healthier, more equitable cities. Founded by musician, artist Love Ssega, the initiative began as a Black-led, collaborative project that uses art, culture, and outdoor events to engage diverse communities and young people on one of London’s most urgent issues – air pollution.
From the outset, the movement has prioritised racial and social justice in the climate conversation, ensuring that the people most affected by pollution are seen, heard, and empowered to lead. My initial involvement with Live + Breathe was as the voice of its launch video, performing my commissioned poem “(I Wanna) Breathe Like You.” What began as a creative collaboration quickly evolved into a deeper mission, bridging the worlds of art, youth work and climate action.
Over the last 4 years, the movement has been running summer activations with community partners, encouraging residents to get active, creative and inspired to use their voice to demand change on their doorstep.
My role now, with the newly incorporated non-profit Live + Breathe, is as projects and youth consultant. I’m proud to help build on this foundation: empowering local voices, using creativity to make advocacy accessible, and demonstrating how community power can shape healthier, fairer cities.
It was an honour to present at this week’s Healthy City Design, sharing how a community-led, arts-driven approach can influence clean air and health policy.
The event explored how planning, policy, investment and design can support healthier, more equitable, and sustainable cities. It was an opportunity to connect with designers, planners, and public health experts exploring new ways to make cities more equitable and resilient.
Although our roots are in South London, the themes resonated deeply with Greater Manchester — a region that continues to confront its own clean-air challenges. By showing how creative activism can break down barriers and empower local leadership, we’re demonstrating a model that can work anywhere.
Providing hope for the future
Live + Breathe began with a simple but ambitious goal — to inspire and involve communities in shaping a just and joyful future. The focus was on Southwark and Lambeth, two boroughs disproportionately affected by poor air quality, and to do so through partnerships that defied convention.
Collaborating with social impact agency Purpose and founding partners CeCe Rollerkates, Peace Ballers, Neon Elevate, and Poetic Unity, the team designed workshops and creative events that brought clean-air advocacy into everyday spaces. By combining education with art and outdoor activity, Live + Breathe aimed to make conversations about pollution not only visible, but relevant to people’s lived experience.
The campaign’s first open letter to local councillors was signed by 25 community organisations, many of which had never previously engaged in environmental campaigning. That milestone marked a turning point, proving that by leading with creativity and inclusion, environmental justice could become a local, collective issue rather than a distant policy debate.
Making the Invisible Visible
Air pollution is a silent killer, and in the wake of the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, many communities lacked spaces to gather and discuss the issue. Our first major event was a summer celebration in Southwark Park, blending sport, art, and live performance to spark connection and raise awareness in a hopeful, joyful way.
As the campaign grew, it became clear that visibility also meant being present online. To reach a younger audience, particularly those aged 18–29, we expanded our digital presence and created new partnerships with Orii Community, Black Farmers Market, and Fight 4 Change. These collaborations led to co-creation workshops and digital campaigns focused on storytelling and participation.
When partners began requesting more data and context, Live + Breathe worked with Imperial College, Breathe London, Global Action Plan, Asthma + Lung UK, and Clean Cities to host science-based workshops. These sessions bridged the gap between community experience and environmental evidence, equipping young people and local leaders with the knowledge to advocate effectively.
Art as a Vehicle for Change
Those who shape legislation often rely on communities feeling disempowered, excluded by complex language, data and statistics. At Live + Breathe, we counter this with creativity. Art is our vehicle for change.
By using music, poetry, design and sport, we empower community leaders to speak to their peers in authentic, relatable ways. This approach has proven that activism can be fun, relevant and deeply rooted in local culture.
Our model supports partners through media training, messaging tools, funding and policy guidance, helping them build confidence and long-term leadership. From youth football festivals and protest skates to manifesto films and cycling rallies, every event is designed to connect creativity with advocacy.
Since its launch, Live + Breathe has engaged over 1,500 Londoners, including more than 800 in 2024 alone, with creative outputs reaching an estimated 480,000 people. The campaign was also a top three finalist for the Sheila McKechnie Foundation’s 2024 Creative Changemaker Award, and our work has been featured by ITV, BBC London and BBC Four.
From Local Action to National Impact
The success of Live + Breathe has helped community voices reach national platforms. Working alongside Global Action Plan, we delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street in July 2024 — the first under the new Prime Minister — calling for urgent action on clean air. Deputy Mayor of London for Environment and Energy Mete Coban MBE, joined 160 poets cycling across the city as part of Clean Air for the Ends, while commissioned poet MyselfBlaize performed in Parliament, amplifying Poetic Unity’s campaign.
Our collaborations with major cultural institutions such as the Southbank Centre and Royal Opera House have further lifted local voices into national and political spaces.
Founder Love Ssega has also represented Live + Breathe at the Labour Party Conference, contributing to discussions on reducing health inequalities through clean-air policy alongside MPs Afzal Khan and Adam Jogee, Larissa Lockwood (Global Action Plan), and Dr Sinead Millwood, a Manchester GP.
Looking Ahead
Live + Breathe’s next chapter is about deepening participation, moving audiences from low-barrier engagement, like signing a petition, to high-impact advocacy that drives real policy change. We’re now looking towards Greater Manchester and other areas in the UK to take up and run with our ethos for bringing change to cities and communities.
During Healthy City Design, we reflected on the importance of balance in activism—because burnout and pessimism are all too easy. Something we at Live + Breathe stand by is that rest is resistance and joy is revolutionary. Asking how we can create a joyful future instead of a bleak one.
While our advocacy is place-based, our vision is global. As cities grow, tackling air pollution is vital for public health. Live + Breathe shows how art, equity, and community power can make clean air a right, not a privilege.
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