Project Summary: ‘Culture as driver and an enabler for sustainable youth development’ will be a series of innovative capacity building and development actions that bring together cultural operators and disadvantaged young people. Context: Across the world the arts and cultural sector makes valuable and significant contributions to both social, economic and development needs as well as the wellbeing of society as a whole. The cultural and creative industries represent one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the global economy, with a growth rate of 13.9 % in Africa, whilst also representing around 4% of total European GDP. Project partners recognize that culture is an essential component of young people’s development, that it represents a source of identity, innovation and creativity for individuals and groups and an important factor in social inclusion, poverty eradication and providing for sustainable economic growth.Where: Our programme will be an African and European partnership, engaging organizations from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Zambia and South Africa. What: The partners will collaborate and cooperate on capacity building training activities; arts engagement projects; cultural initiatives; periods of voluntary service and professional networking, that will have a measured and significant impact on their capabilities to operate and act within a globalized arts and cultural sector. This project will engage professional arts/cultural practitioners who will facilitate and support the delivery of training and creative work as well as pass on valuable skills and knowledge to the project participants. The stages within our project including:Stage 1: A training for cultural workers and young people;Stage 2: National arts and cultural initiatives;Stage 3: Hosting of European Voluntary Service;Stage 4: Transnational cultural exchanges (including capacity building programmes);Stage 5: A final dissemination conference and evaluation meeting.Why: The cultural sector is a growth cluster for economic activity with its potential for fighting poverty increasingly recognized. Our project will compliment the importance of culture in development and its contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Through building the skills, knowledge, experience and competences of our partners and project participant’s we enhance their capacity and capability to develop employment, create new products and test micro enterprises within the arts and cultural sector. Project objectives will be to: Explore compare and contrast models of best practice in arts engagement;Enable youth arts workers to better understand and develop employment opportunities within the cultural sector;Gain new competences and experiences of cultural sector business development; Deepen knowledge and skills in order to better organize international arts projects;Provide insight into employment development within the cultural sector.
Project Summary: ‘Culture as driver and an enabler for sustainable youth development’ will be a series of innovative capacity building and development actions that bring together cultural operators and disadvantaged young people. Context: Across the world the arts and cultural sector makes valuable and significant contributions to both social, economic and development needs as well as the wellbeing of society as a whole. The cultural and creative industries represent one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the global economy, with a growth rate of 13.9 % in Africa, whilst also representing around 4% of total European GDP. The partners within this project recognized that culture is an essential component of young people’s development, that it represents a source of identity, innovation and creativity for individuals and groups and an important factor in social inclusion, poverty eradication and providing for sustainable economic growth. Where: Our programme was an African and European partnership that engaged organisations from United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Zambia and South Africa. What: Partners collaborated and cooperated in training activities which built the capacity, developed arts engagement projects, cultural initiatives, hosted voluntary service and professional networking. The programme of activities designed to measured the impact of the partner’s capabilities to operate and act within a globalized arts and cultural sector. Professional arts/cultural practitioners facilitated and supported the delivery of training, creative work as well as passed on skills and knowledge to the project participants. The following stages were carried out within the projects programme: Stage 1: Training for cultural workers and young people in Liverpool UK Stage 2: National arts and cultural initiatives in with KalentuRa, Amsterdam Netherlands, Artscape Theatre, Cape Town South Africa, Brouhaha International Liverpool UK and Barefeet Theatre, Lusaka Zambia. Stage 3: Hosting of European Voluntary Service; 2 x South Africans to UK ( 2 Dance and cultural Arts practitioners from Artscapes partner Jazz Arts, 1 X Zambian to UK Acrobat and performer from Barefeet, 1X South African to NL Choreographer from Artsscape, 1 x Zambian to NL Circus Practitioner and theatre director from Barefeet , 1 x UK to Zambia Costume Designer from Brouhaha, 1x UK to South Africa performance artists and maker. Stage 4: Transnational cultural exchanges which had capacity building activities programmed into the schedule); June 2015 Amsterdam NL showcased collaboration and participated within the Amsterdam Summer Carnival, June 2015 Cape Town South Africa showcased collaborations at the Africa Youth Theatre and Dance Festival, July 2015 Liverpool UK showcased work at the Liverpool International Street Festival and Carnival and August 2015 Lusaka Zambia showcased work at the Barefeet Festival 2015 Stage 5: A final dissemination conference and evaluation meeting. In Nov 2015 tookm place with some EVS , Exchange and Workers hosted by Artscape, Cape Town South Africa