Creative YOUCreativity 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 The Courts: Youth Steering Group It is high time we celebrate the efforts of The Courts Youth Steering Group, young people whose contributions are vital in ensuring Creative Youth Network’s latest development truly works for the emerging young artists it is designed to support. The Youth Steering Group has been there from the beginning, working alongside the architects, project managers, quantity surveyors, business planners and interior designers to make sure the voices of young people are baked into The Courts development at every stage. They’ve also been working with creative sector professionals and historians from UWE so the stories of people who experienced Bristol’s old Magistrates Courts will be woven into the finished project. The group’s work has included ‘Go See’ visits to a range of inspirational projects around the UK, including Gateshead, Liverpool, Manchester, Dorchester, Bristol and London, where the group has been able to absorb new ideas for spaces and feed them back into The Courts design. You can meet The Courts Steering Group right here, read their mission statement and have a look at the work they’ve been doing. At Creative Youth Network we try very hard to make sure young people are telling us what they really need, not just being told what they are getting. The Courts Youth Steering Group is a striking example of this. The group certainly impressed National Lottery Heritage Fund in our successful bid for more than £4.25m in funding for The Courts. “The decision-making committee] were really affected with the way that young people from a diverse range of backgrounds were involved in both project governance and management through the youth steering group and the development of the capital planning. I’ve rarely seen a project engage with their core audience in such a genuinely meaningful way and I have complete faith in your ability to continue this through the project work and well beyond our funding.” - National Lottery Heritage Fund. If you want to find out more, or help us to renovate the old Magistrates Courts, please contact [email protected] Manage Cookie Preferences How can we help?