People walking in University Parks recently may have been surprised to find masked assailants brandishing fake swords jumping out at them from the bushes.
A group of students have been dressing up as ninjas, giving out presents to strangers at Christmas and breaking out into song in public places as part of a new initiative that aims to create scenes of joy in the city. Improve Oxford is a not-for-profit event-running group launched in October last year by Oxford Spires pupils Mohammed Alherz, Tomas Davies and Louis Tsouris, all 17, from Oxford and Cherwell Valley College.
The pupils launched the initiative in memory of their friend Saed Zarham, who died last year at the same age from sudden adult death syndrome. Mohammed said: “Saed was a really fun guy. He would appreciate all sorts of things that try to improve the community. He often complained about the lack of things to do in Oxford, how he sometimes wanted to do things but couldn’t because Oxford is so small.
“One of the main reasons for founding this initiative is that you often hear people complain about how unlively the city is and so we decided to start running events to bring back joy and chaos to the city.”
The students are working with charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) to help raise awareness of sudden death syndrome through their events.
“We chose to be proactive in Saed’s memory so we work with a charity to raise awareness of his condition. We believe as an organisation that no parent should experience the pain of burying their own child,” Mohammed said. “We try to increase awareness of the condition because it’s really sudden and people don’t know about it. Healthy people suddenly have a heart attack and die and they’re all so young which is really sad.”
The initiative is inspired by New York-based prank collective Improv Everywhere. Improve Oxford is open to anyone who wants to get involved. At Christmas, members handed out presents of DVDs, CDs, chocolate oranges and teddy bears to members of the public in Oxford city centre.
In the last few months, a 40-strong group has been dressing up at ninjas and hiding in trees in University Parks. Mohammed said: “One person held a sign saying 'Dare to Fight' and he held out a plastic sword and everyone dressed as ninjas just ran at the people who picked up the sword. It was really funny.”
Over the coming weeks, the group said they will be breaking out into song in public places.
“People won’t know who is participating and they will see one-by-one people breaking out into song, it should be good,” Mohammed said.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/improveoxford or email Mohammed at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
