Impact Arts

Young people had another fun and inspiring week on our Creative Pathways programme in Barrhead, as new members joined the group to participate in a range of art activities and reflective writing workshops!

Artists Rosanna and Portia began the week by challenging the young people about
what makes them angry and what issues they care about. After a short piece of personal creative writing – from getting woken up by the
cat to annoying teachers from school – the group split to pore over newspapers
and discuss the issues locally and internationally which made their blood boil.

The group were then asked to turn negative to positives and
come up with messages they wanted to share. Following a
presentation of charity adverts, the young people began designing a campaign about something they really cared about.

The next step was
to create storyboards and write scripts to make short films to captured the
audience’s imagination and encourage them to engage with the issue.

One group
had a passion for animals and decided to tackle animal cruelty, while another group considered child abduction in Scotland and the third looked at environmental
issues causing floods over-seas.

The
rest of the week the young people designed plasticine models and built sets to start making their short films. We’ll have more to come on the blog shortly…

Meanwhile, the team worked on their employability skills by considering what was important
to them, and how they wanted to fuse this with the world of work, learning
about different opportunities available in different sectors. They also made a
start on CVs, by learning about how caring about different issues can help
you develop skills and qualities in a wide variety of areas.

“I’m finding the course really interesting, because I’m always learning new skills,” says participant Becky. “I’ve become more confident through talking to new people as well.

“I’ve enjoyed writing creative stories and getting to use my imagination through the animation work. It’s inspired me to try everything, because I’ve enjoyed things that I didn’t think I would.”

We still have a few spaces on this programme, which is running until mid-November. The programme is aimed at 16-25 year olds who are not in employment, education or training. Find more information here.

Funding and support for the project comes from Barrhead Housing Association, Inspiring Scotland, the Big Lottery Fund’s Our Bright Future initiative and the Scottish Government’s People and Communities Fund.