Participation in Action: Young people create charter to help shape North East arts

The Young People’s Charter for Arts and Culture sets out how young people and cultural organisations can collaborate successfully to ensure the success of the arts in the North East.

The initiative is being led by the charity NE-Generation, part of the Regional Youth Work Unit. It will build on existing investment in youth participation in the arts that was given to the area as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Ben Ayrton, programme manager for NE-Generation, and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the charter, believes young people are vital to making local cultural opportunities more relevant and meaningful.

“We’re just trying to ensure that young people have a really clear role in the design of the cultural offer in the future,” says Ayrton (pictured above, centre, with young artists from the NE-Generation programme). “It is about quality of art, as well as the really strong democratic principle of involving young people in the design and delivery of services that are for them.” 

The charter is not intended to dictate how organisations should act, Ayrton insists, but rather to encourage an open and professional discourse.

“We hope the charter will be a series of themes and values that will begin conversation,” he says.

A steering group of 14 young people, together with cultural leaders from across the North East, have been in consultation since May last year. Through a series of day-long sessions and residential weekends they have come up with the core values they believe the charter should embody.

Kris Bills, 24, is a volunteer youth worker and one of the young people involved in the project. “Together we come up with every part of the charter – writing it, doing the research and coming up with what we think should be in it,” he says.

Matilda Neil, 16, a young circus performer and aspiring writer, explains: “For too long young people have been on the edge of things. We hope this charter will help us contribute and be valued by curators, commissioners and funders.”

Demonstrable improvements
The young people involved in the scheme have proven that they have the ability to make demonstrable improvements to the local cultural opportunities, Ayrton adds.

“I’m continually surprised at the real innovation and maturity and professionalism of some of the young people we are working with, from a whole range of backgrounds,” he says.
 
After the lengthy collaboration process the final contents of the charter will be agreed before being presented to the public at an event at the Newcastle Discovery Museum in late February. “The young people involved will take the reigns at the event, running and hosting it themselves. The organisers and professionals will stay out of it.” He adds: “We’ll try to keep a relatively low profile and let them have their moment.”