Not Your Ordinary Company

COVO was established in 1996 by Luisa del Vento and Angelo Piccigallo in the London borough of Islington as a community hub bringing food, education, music and art together. In 1997, Suzi Howlett and Helena Cantone joined forces and together they developed and established COVO as a Registered Charity and moved to its new base in Southwak. In 2000 Chris Nembhard and Peter Keserue joined the team and COVO Connecting Voices went on to be commissioned to implement a Play and Behaviour Programme in Southwark primary schools, as part of the SRB Single Regeneration Budget.

Its success in improving children’s playtime and behaviour was brought to the attention of Goldsmiths, University of London, who conducted an external evaluation of COVO's work.

Building on the Play Project’s success, the team designed a suite of follow-on educational interventions inspired by the Play Programme’s core pillars of empowerment and self-reflection. Each initiative was co-created with students, teachers, classroom assistants and the school leadership. All stakeholders met regularly in sessions expertly facilitated by Covo, ensuring that every voice shaped the programme’s evolution.

In 2004, COVO introduced this method into School Council and PSHE programmes in both primary and secondary schools across the London Borough of Southwark. After delivering consistently strong outcomes, the initiative expanded into inner-city London. By 2015, COVO was working extensively with schools in nine boroughs—Hammersmith & Fulham, Hackney, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Lewisham, Camden, Islington and Croydon. 

Building on our success of delivering high quality, creative programmes, COVO was awarded in 2012 funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to deliver a borough wide project in Southwark training young people in filmmaking, photography, research and interview techniques and oral history. Together with local artists and practitioners, the project culminated in an exhibition co-curated by the young people in a local gallery in Peckham.

In 2016, COVO shifted its focus to understanding and addressing challenging behaviour at its root. Drawing on its accumulated expertise, the team designed and delivered a whole-school behaviour intervention in partnership with the People Referral Unit. Through targeted staff training and ongoing coaching, COVO embedded the new approach across policies and classrooms—ensuring that the improvements would endure long after the team’s departure.

Due to Covid pandemic in 2020, COVO greatly reduced its activities. During this challenging period, the charity provided a warm hub as part of Southwark borough’s initiative and offered a welcoming space to the local community.

Since then, COVO has focussed on working in the local community and has been providing different social activities including a film night, cooking on a budget workshops, a parent and toddler group, and workshops for young BEM mums, young people and the elderly.