Children and young people are at the heart of Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire Cultural Education Partnership. It has always been a priority for the CEP and its members to have young voices rooted in what we do, and have them lead the way!
Our Creative Youth Voices project, which commenced in November 2019, has started to do exactly that, thanks to the lead of Kreative Foundations, and an amazing project team consisting of The New Vic Theatre, Endon High School, and The City Learning Trust.
Our group of 24 young people, also known as Cultural Explorers, have begun their journeys towards working with us to co-design arts provision across the city, and feeding in to an array of sectors to ensure young people’s needs and interests are being met.
Since November, our Young Explorers have taken part in a host of amazing opportunities and training, including; a special showing of ‘The Prince and The Pauper’ at The New Vic Theatre, backstage tours, career talks, and cultural analysis training.
Overall the project aims to:
- CHALLENGE their perceptions in order to gain a deeper understanding of arts and culture
- Support them to EXPLORE and PARTICIPATE in a wide range of arts and cultural activities, both locally and nationally
- Encourage them to SHARE their findings
It has been a fabulous journey so far, and although Covid-19 has meant that the project needed to take a slightly different direction, the journey is far from over.
Rather than the project coming to a halt due to Covid-19, the Creative Youth Voices Challenge Packs were created! These packs (digital and paper based) ensure that children and young people are able to continue their engagement with arts and culture. They are filled with interactive activities, arts and cultural experiences, and opportunities to share their findings through the production of their own reviews.
In what has been a short amount of time, we have received so much value from the voices of our Young Explorers, and we can’t wait to hear more!
If you’d like to learn more about the Creative Youth Voices project, please feel free to get in touch with Kirsty Cotton at Kreative Foundations, via kirsty@kreativefoundations.co.uk