Expanding young people’s social and cultural capital
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Expanding young people’s social and cultural capital
Arts Emergency wants every young person to have the chance to contribute to the culture they live in. Neil Griffiths, CEO and co-founder, tells us about how the charity is providing opportunities for young people interested in pursuing careers in the arts.
How ‘fair’ are the arts and humanities industries in the UK currently?
Only one in 10 people who work in the arts and humanities industries in the UK are from a working-class background. If you come from a more privileged, middle-class background, you are four times more likely to find work in those industries. These industries are unfair at a statistical level and over-representational for privileged people.
What barriers do young people face in accessing the arts communities?
There are numerous industry-related workshops and training opportunities for other industries, but working in the arts is not the same as, say, training to be a lawyer or a tradesperson, for which there are very clear steps to take.
Unless you know somebody in the arts community, it can be very difficult to enter the industry. If you come from a background that isn’t privileged, you might be the only person in your entire network who wants to do this thing, and it’s a hard choice to go down an unknown path. If you come from a family of university graduates who have had more access to culture or people in those industries, it’s easier to find work experience or a paid job. Entering the arts is a personal challenge if you don’t have access to that world.
Representation is also important, and it’s important to see people who look and sound like you – to see yourself – doing these things. On-screen, representation has improved. Behind the scenes, not so much. It’s harder to see the arts as a serious option if you are from a less privileged background and you’ve got financial struggles. People are often expected to work for free to gain experience – that’s not always possible for people who need to earn money to survive. The arts can seem frivolous. In fact, we have policy makers who talk about how frivolous the arts are, which isn’t helpful!
What made you start Arts Emergency?
I was the first person to go to university in my family, and it changed my life. My co-founder, Josie Long (who is a comedian), and I wanted to pass that on down the line. University made all sorts of differences to my life, and not just educationally – it was also about meeting people from different backgrounds, intellectual stimulation, and the creative opportunity that no one I knew had had.
I studied English at university, performed as a musician, got into activism and then started Arts Emergency with Josie. We wanted to create a grassroots organisation that would help people feel less vulnerable and alone. We wanted to pass on what we knew – what we wish we had known when we’d been younger. And here we are, 14 years later!
What are Art Emergency’s key messages?
Josie and I wrote a manifesto when we started, and it has guided the practice of the organisation. Our key message are: do something, no matter how small, and do what you can to help your community, and keep it going. That’s how Arts Emergency works. We’re still focused locally, even though we have a national reach now. We’re based in schools, where we meet our applicants, and we’re based in communities. Ours is a local project that connects to bigger things.
Our Youth Collective manifesto was written 10 years after our first manifesto, by 12 young people from our community; it’s a beautiful continuation. A key point from that manifesto is that no one goes on their journey alone, and this is informing our next steps. The ethos of ‘do something now and know you are not on your own’ means we focus on the beautiful side of our work – the friendship and the support.
Who are the Arts Emergency mentors?
We have a network of 7,000 creative professionals from all kinds of backgrounds and industries, from freelance practitioners to, for example, the director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). We’ve got a real range of people, but the unifying factor is a focus on social justice and sharing. Our mentors believe in the power of generosity and connection to change the world.
How does the mentoring work?
We go into schools and talk with young people (and their teachers and guardians) about what they are interested in. Our mentoring is organic – we find a suitable mentor based on a young person’s interests, rather than allocating pre-decided mentors beforehand. This is important because it is all about their passion, their sense of ownership and their trajectory. The mentoring is remarkably exploratory and impactful in so many different ways.
In our tenth year, we conducted a review on engagement and found that 88.2% of young people that joined the Arts Emergency programme completed the programme. This proves our value, and I believe it is because we invest in the person and find the right fit for them, rather than forcing people into something that is not right for them.
What does the mentoring involve?
The mentoring itself is a year-long engagement for someone in year 12 or 13. As a mentee, you are introduced to fellow mentees from your school and other local schools as a big group. We bring all the mentors and young people together to start a conversation and make everyone comfortable.
Thereafter, mentees can negotiate with their mentor what works best for them, where to meet, how often, and what their goals are going to be. Mentees tend to meet their mentors for an hour or an hour and a half each month. The goals often change, which is really important. It’s a sign that mentees are learning and exploring.
If a mentee has a goal that their mentor can’t help with directly, our wider community means we can find someone who can help, be it answering a question, reading your portfolio or talking about their own experiences. Our personal networks enable us to replicate the privilege other young people might have automatically. In many ways, we are a small community group that happens to have gone national. We work with five to 10 young people in each school, and those youngsters are connected to so many more people across the country.
We provide a safe space, supporting young people as they navigate the wider world. It’s about individuals being their best, most aspirational selves.
How do you support young people beyond mentoring?
Something unique about Arts Emergency is the long-term support we offer. Our mentees become part of our Young Community, where they can access a wide range of career-enriching activities and support such as networking events, paid commissions, the chance to collaborate with their peers, tickets to events, travel bursaries and more until they turn 26. At this point, they may even be in a position to join the Network themselves and become part of the Arts Emergency ecosystem! Together we’re building a beautiful community that is generously passing the ladder down to those coming up behind them.
What have been some of Arts Emergency’s key successes?
One key success is that we exist in the first place! No one had done this before and no one wanted to fund it, which is why we have relied on individuals to build it. We are in a different world now. We’ve got a track record and proven outcomes.
Memorable outcomes for young people range from one of our Youth Collective joining Dyson as a software designer, to one of our ‘alumni’ being cast in a Royal Shakespeare Company play. We have an award-winning literary agent on our board who had originally joined us as a mentee back in the day! Another member of our Youth Collective is now running communications at the National Theatre. We’ve got a young Orwell prize winner in our network, and plenty of Oxbridge graduates and undergraduates. The successes cover a broad range, and that’s because of the range of young people’s interests.
We don’t claim these successes are our own doing – they are all about the young people. All we are doing is providing the tools to allow young people to find out what they actually want to do and to flourish.
Our major success is that we give people a chance to explore and decide for themselves what they want to do, which, in the end, may or may not be in the arts. Having the chance to decide not to do something is also a privilege.
What does your work mean for society?
As well as the arts being important for GDP (gross domestic product), they are also the bedrock of a culture that we all live in. They shape how we see ourselves and each other. If only a privileged few people have the chance to produce that culture, it is not going to reflect the real world we live in. If you are not part of the conversation, you won’t see yourself reflected back, and you are not informing public debate and perception, which has real social and political implications.
Seeing young people benefit from Arts Emergency and seeing them pass it on, we know that we have started something amazing, and something that is going to make bigger changes as it keeps growing.
Website: arts-emergency.org
Find a mentor: arts-emergency.org/young-people
Become a mentor: arts-emergency.org/get-involved
Get involved:
Arts Emergency provides 16-18 year olds with free mentoring, advice and opportunities to help them pursue a career they’re passionate about. If you want to find out how you can get an Arts Emergency mentor click here. Applications to get a mentor are now OPEN until 30 September 2024!
YOU can help an under-resourced young person get a fair shot at the future they want. Become an Arts Emergency mentor. Applications close 30 September 2024.
Do you have a question for Neil?
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