Lengths 13 – 14: What do I hope to achieve in the year ahead? This year I am involved in various creative and critical youth work projects which form the core of my passion and focus for the year ahead. I am also a support worker for a friend with learning difficulties and in my own time I am involved in the City-Zen events collective, City-Zine community magazine and the RamPAGES critical newsletter. I am also an MC and spoken word artist who over the last few years has only really channelled my creativity into the youth work projects I've been involved in rather than writing for myself and others outside of work. This year I plan for that to change. I would also like to support Sound Bites wholefood cooperative more as well as the Social Change Library upstairs in Yaffle Cafe that I helped to set up a few years ago.
This year I want the impact we have on the youn gpeople at Baby People PRU to be more potent than ever before. I have been asked to take a lead on helping implement a more critical global youth work based approach to our work which ultimately entails engaging young people with the issues that impact upon their lives and encouraging them to ask questions which we then collectively critically explore before helping to support them take action towards the creation of a more just, equitable and sustainable society. We always start with the personal then move to the local, national and global helping each other understand the interconnectedness and global nature of our daily lives. The theme for the first term was Past, Present, Future, the second term is Derbz on the Map and the third term will be No More Lives Lost, which moves logically from the personal to the local to the national/global. The young people shall produce mix tapes, perform and organise community events that aim to bring people together, raise awareness and inspire people to take action for social change.
Other projects that I'm working on this year include Shake The Dust which is working with young people in Nottingham to help them train to become slam poets that shall compete in a slam poetry tournament as a part of the cultural olympiad. I am also helping with a Global Education Derby project called 'Money, Power, Respect' which is going to be banging. It's working with local MCs and musicians in Derby to critically explore the themes of money, power and respect before creatively expressing themselves through music and lyric writing. Those involved in the project shall develop vital organisational and community development skills as well as be given the opportunity to put out mix tapes, music videos, deliver workshops to young people all over the city and finally perform at a huge finale event. The final project I look forward to is going back to work for the Challenge Network over the summer who work with young people aged 16 from all over the country. The Challenge Network take young people on residentials and empower them to become more confident, capable, cooperative, critical minded citizens.
I am also excited to be the chair of the management committee of Global Education Derby which is a critical, progressive, global education charity. I'm really enjoying helping it move towards being a more decentralised, autonomous and democratic organisation which operates in a way that is aligned with the values that exist at it's core. I also really look forward to helping the City-Zen collective continue their good work in entertaining, educating, involving and inspiring the community through their street events, film showings, workshops and fund raising events and I also aim to keep pushing the cause of free-expression whilst providing a platform for the people via the open, uncensored community magazine City-Zine as well as also researching and writing critically about global capitalism and the Con-Dem governments absurdly unjust policies for the RamPAGES newsletter. I hope to see more activity occur with Derby Uncut and the Occupation movement and last but far from least I'm going to write, record and perform more. Watch this space and get in touch if you'd like to help out or get involved in anyway. The more the merrier and your help would be deeply appreciated.
Resistance, Creativity, Praxis and Progress. x
No comments:
Post a Comment