Participation Works

The Participation Works Network for England held its ‘Putting The Arts Into Participation’ event on Friday 7th March in London. The event was held in partnership with the Arts Council England.

The purpose of the event was to showcase using arts and creative approaches to increase participation of children and young people, particularly harder to reach groups and support the statutory sector to consider alternative, exciting models to use in achieving local area agreements and new national indicators. The event was held at the South Bank Centre in the London Borough of Lambeth, which is currently the only local authority in the UK who has a stretch target in their LAA to use the arts to meet their target for increasing youth participation.

Speaking at the event, Natalie Jeal, PWNE National Coordinator said, “There is lots of work underway around involving and engaging children and young people appropriately with the Children’s Plan announced in December and lots more developments in the education sector to develop the use of arts and creative approaches in education and other participation processes for children and young people.”

“The focus of this event is to bring participation workers and the arts sector together and provide inspiration for local authority staff on ways that they can meet these targets using creative and new approaches. The event is a good opportunity for individuals to have tasters of working with the arts and experiencing what the arts can do for them personally.”

Delegates heard from a range of speakers from the arts and cultural sectors throughout the afternoon.

Steve Moffitt, Director of Creative Partnerships delivered a presentation  looking at how creative partnerships schools and their partners have engaged with the Olympics to date and the potential of the Olympics for schools and creative and cultural organisations. Creative Partnerships have developed the Cultural Olympiad, which is a programme of work that will provide the opportunity for children and young people to run cultural events and showcase their work.

Laia Gasch, Creative Director of ‘Some Other Way Forward’ delivered a presentation on engaging marginalized young people. SOWF is a flagship project from the South Bank and Bankside Cultural Quarter (SBBCQ), a partnership of 22 not for profit organisations based in the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. SOWF has a focus on engaging with hard to reach young people, particularly NEETs (not in education, employment or training) and aims to offer young people aged 3-19 in Lambeth and Southwark a chance to meaningfully experience cultural activities around the themes of performance, art, film, learning, environment, employment and life skills.

Steve Ewell from the Half Moon Theatre Company delivered a presentation on the company’s participatory projects for young people. Based in East London, Half Moon work with 0-17 year olds in schools, nurseries, children’s centres and community groups led by specialist tutors. They use drama, puppetry, video technology, music, art and dance led by specialist tutors. Their professional productions are informed by their participatory projects with children and young people. Half Moon run weekly youth theatre groups providing a space for young people to create performance and explore drama techniques.

Other workshops included the PLUS strategy which is a strategic partnership between the Arts Council England and the Youth Justice Board to use the arts to engage young people at risk of offending, the Arts Award, Creative Services, Creative Schools, Richmond Local Authorities Arts Service. The event also included a practical Gamelan music-making workshop (Indonesian percussion) and a chance to do Bollywood fusion dancing led by Akademi (formerly known as Academy of Indian Dance.

The event was attended by young journalists and photographers from LIVE! Magazine.

Thu, 20/03/2008 - 00:00