Creative YOU

Creativity is everywhere. Opportunity is not.     

We are part of the solution. The secret is in our name. Every year Creative Youth Network gives thousands of young people a taste and thirst for the arts and culture and the joy, life-skills and opportunity they bring.   

But we want more.   

Creative YOU is our campaign showcasing how we, you and the engaged, emerging and amazing young creatives we support, come together. 

We want to reveal how, together, we are ambition, quality, cultural democracy and social mobility in action. 

Every young person deserves the right to access creativity and development opportunities in the creative and cultural industries.

It all starts with education.

If all young people have access to creative subjects in school, then talented young people from all backgrounds can pursue their passion, develop crucial skills needed in so many industries and improve their wellbeing.


1. Pledge

Add your name and join the many people passionate about bringing creativity back into our schools.   

With all the pledges we’ll be reaching out to headteachers in Bristol and the South West. We hope this will encourage local academies to give more space to creativity in their curriculum.  

Bristol, being the creative city we know and love, can pave the way for other regions to do the same, showcasing the true value of creativity.  

PLEDGE 

 

2. Sign up

Join us by signing up to our newsletter where we share best practice of how to support young people. 

sign up 

 

3. Find out more

Join us by reading and sharing our CreativeYOU report which shows how our work brings opportunities for creative expression and enables young people to explore their talent, regardless of background or circumstance.  

Download our Creative YOU report

 

It’s safe to say that the world is very different to how it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, and so on. The passion and resilience of some incredibly brave and brilliant people over the decades has helped pave the way for change and progress.

As we move forward, we must also look back.

To understand how things were before so we can continue to strive to do better in the future. So we can understand each other’s experiences because they are different from our own. LGBTQ+ history month is a prime opportunity for us to learn about the history of the community and how we got to where we are today so we can grow with that newfound knowledge. I have learned from LGBTQ+ history month over the years that change doesn’t occur overnight and we have to keep speaking up, standing up and fighting to make people listen.

I have faced a lot of bullying from a very young age, an age where I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be gay. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t face discrimination anymore; I still get derogatory comments about the way I speak, the way I hold myself. Sometimes I don’t feel particularly safe around people, especially if I don’t know them very well and that’s really challenging. I’m sure there are many LGBTQ+ people out there who can relate to my experience, but my experience is unique, as is the experience of every LGBTQ+ person in the world.

That being said, I recognise my privilege.

I am cisgender, white and arguably lower middle class. There are so many other people out there who have had tougher experiences and have to endure other challenges like transphobia, racism, ableism. I do not pretend to be all-knowing and I know I have a lot to learn, however, I will always be willing to listen, to grow, and to serve as an ally to the rest of the community.

This LGBTQ+ History Month, we will be engaging our young people in discussions around LGBTQ+ identity, we will be showcasing the amazing work of other organisations and, most importantly, we will be utilising this time to learn.

We hope you join us on this journey. Let us know in the comments below how you are celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month. 

How can we help?