How Heart n Soul makes change: 'It’s about not underestimating the potential of anybody'

“Shall we try weaving, singing or capoeira first?”

This isn’t a question most people get asked at 10:30am on a Thursday morning. But for participants at Heart n Soul’s Allsorts programme, it’s a familiar dilemma.

Allsorts, based at The Albany in south-east London, brings together adults with learning disabilities and autistic people to take part in creative sessions led by artists. The programme changes each week, and no two sessions look the same.

For Ella, who has been part of the Heart n Soul community for years, that variety is exactly the point.

“Allsorts gives me a good opportunity to try things I wouldn’t normally,” she says. “It gets me motivated to try new skills. Last week I did some yoga, which I hadn’t done before. It was good. It got me moving and stretching.”

That spirit of experimentation has defined Heart n Soul since its beginnings almost 40 years ago. Today, the Deptford-based arts charity works with around 200 people with learning disabilities and autistic people each week, reaching thousands each year.

Heart n Soul was recently recognised as one of Big Issue’s 2026 Changemakers for amplifying the work of artists with learning disabilities and autistic artists.

Read more:

• Big Issue’s Changemakers of 2026: Health and disability
• Big Issue’s Changemakers of 2026: Housing and homelessness
• Big Issue’s Changemakers of 2026: Refugees, migrants and asylum seekers

Its co-founder and chief executive, Mark Williams, says the organisation was never planned as a major institution.

“There was no big dream of Heart n Soul as a thing existing,” he explains. “It all kind of happened very naturally.”

The organisation began in the mid-1980s as a small music workshop. Williams, a musician, had not previously worked with people with learning disabilities and autistic people, so arrived without preconceptions about what participants could or could not do.

“I didn’t really know what talents people had,” he says. “But quite quickly people were writing their own songs, performing and wanting to tour.”

One of those early collaborators was Pino Frumiento, who co-founded the organisation and wrote the song Heart n Soul that would later give the group its name. 

“I started it all off with Mark, my friend,” he beams. “We started doing music in 1984.”

Looking back, Frumiento says he didn’t expect what would follow.

“I never thought I could do something like this,” he pauses. “I didn’t think a disabled person could do this job.”

Seeing artists around him flourish as part of Heart n Soul has become one of his proudest achievements.

“When I see others improving, it makes me feel that it’s not just me who can do it,” he says.

Over the past four decades, Heart n Soul has grown into a creative community. Its artists perform at venues including the Southbank Centre and the Royal Albert Hall, while partnerships with organisations like Wellcome and Tate explore how culture, research and disability intersect.

Yet Williams is wary of the idea that success must always mean getting bigger.

“I’m always interested in how people have become obsessed with scaling things up,” he nods thoughtfully. “I’d like to think we’re pioneering a different way of having a lot of influence without constantly getting bigger.

“The definition of success is you go deeper and reach people in a more meaningful way.”

At the centre of that approach is a philosophy of collaboration. Heart n Soul often describes its work as co-production – a term that has become fashionable across the arts and social sectors in recent years. But at Heart n Soul, it’s not a buzzword. It has shaped the organisation since its earliest days.

“For us, it means working together as equals from the start,” explains Williams. “You can’t collaborate unless you let go of some of your power.”

Inside the organisation, that culture is immediately visible.

Emily Payne, a project manager who has worked at Heart n Soul for nearly 13 years, describes the environment as unusually supportive.

“It’s fun, it’s creative. There’s just such a nice community,” she says.

“We always refer to the Heart n Soul family.”

For Payne, working there has been transformative as well.

“Getting involved with Heart n Soul really is a kind of life-changing thing,” she smiles. “Working here has increased my confidence and my own aspirations and creativity.”

She says one of the biggest lessons the organisation offers the wider world is not to underestimate people.

“It’s about not underestimating the potential of anybody. It’s an openness to what can be achieved.”

That philosophy is visible in the careers of artists like Little Kali, a singer and songwriter who first performed as part of the Heart n Soul band Too Hot For Candy and is now launching a solo career.

“I write my own songs. I play the piano and I sing in harmony,” she beams.

Her music draws inspiration from artists she grew up listening to, including Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone.

With several new songs written and gigs already lined up, she hopes to release new material later this year.

“Doing the solo work is even more fun because I kind of come up with my own ideas when I’m at home,” she says.

Williams believes stories like Kali’s demonstrate why learning disabled and autistic artists must be seen not through a lens of limitation, but as contributors to culture in their own right.

More broadly, he believes organisations like Heart n Soul offer lessons for society at large.

“I’d love people to just generally be more human together,” Williams says.

“How can we come together? How can we create more events where everybody feels welcome?”

Frumiento agrees.

“Society is beginning to change,” he says. “But we [people with learning disabilities and autistic people] must be heard.”

After four decades of music, art and collaboration, his ambition for the future remains the same.

“I don’t know what it will be like in another 40 years,” he laughs. “I definitely wouldn’t retire until I was 80. Or 90. Or even 100.

“Like Vera Lynn. She stopped singing at 100 years old. And why not? There’s nothing to stop us.”

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