Youth Connections

Change Yer Tune

Change Yer Tune is a collaborative project focused on increasing community cohesion between hard to reach young people including young carers, refugees and local young people. The project uses music as an engagement tool to help foster skills and build confidence to encourage awareness and understanding of each other's cultures.

The programme will cover song writing, production, sound engineering, event management and performance via online workshops delivered by experienced tutors and trainees. The songs created during the project will form part of a final live performance at Youth Connections’ venue and the young people will also receive an accredited SQA award.  

Visit the Youth Connections website

The Customs House

Takeover

The Takeover is a week-long arts engagement experience at The Customs House that is produced by, with and for young people to develop and showcase their leadership skills. The Takeover Team is a group of 13-18 year olds who are recruited from diverse backgrounds and have varying leadership and arts experiences.

The team plan and budget for the week-long programme of events, and they commission and brief professional artists, performers, workshops and creative experiences that they know young people will find compelling. They also support the delivery and promotion of the festival. 

Visit the The Customs House website

Starcatchers

Creative Kin

Creative Kin is a unique artist-led intervention to support very young children living in kinship care arrangements and their Kinship Carer/Kinship Carers Family.  Participation in the programme supports the development of vulnerable children who have experienced considerable trauma. The positive creative experiences they share with their carers is an effective tool in building stronger relationships, helping develop communication and social skills in both children and adults.

Research shows playful activities with primary carer-givers build confidence, resilience and self-expression, while encouraging positive emotional, cognitive and behavioural development in early years children. Neuroscience has demonstrated that experiences in the first three years of life change the brain and its pathways, which is particularly powerful for children who are living with trauma.

Visit the Starcatchers website

Nightingale House Hospice

Artists in the Atrium

‘Artists in the Atrium’ aims to bring the outside into the hospice through artists, photographers, sculptures, poets, musicians, writers, florists and gardeners. This will be completed via

1. Workshops involving the creative arts such as jewellery making, pottery, singing, and floristry.
2. Marketplaces where patients, their families and the local creative community can exhibit, display and offer to sell their work.
3. Exhibitions of professionals’ and patients’ work which can be viewed by the wider community. The project aims to offers patients security, a sense of calm and positivity through arts and music, therefore enhancing their dignity, well-being and vitality. 

Visit the Nightingale House Hospice website