44% of the UK’s wealth is owned by just 10% of the population. Ten years of government austerity has also meant up to 52% cuts in funding for education, care, youth clubs, youth workers, young refugees, grassroots organisations, mental health, police and social services. Literally half of services – gone. And these cuts have been directly linked to youth knife crime, exploitation by county lines gangs, poor mental health, exclusions and homelessness. Many young people feel silenced, ignored and like their fire is being put out.
Yet we know that social inequality does not mean a lack of potential and all young people, if given the opportunity, have the energy, creativity, passion and innovation to create their own futures and make our society a better place. We also know that arts and creativity ignites and unleashes the energy, passion and innovation that exists amongst disenfranchised youth, leading to self-empowerment and strengthened communities.
Through creative arts and media RISE builds collectives of young people that are at the forefront of social change and creating their own futures. One of our strengths comes from the active involvement of young people throughout everything we do.
Founded in 2016 RISE runs creative skills development projects, produces inspirational live events and offers mentorship, work experience, employment and networking opportunities.
Our projects have all been co-designed to be replicable and scalable - with a view to these being delivered by trained young people in the future throughout our countries and beyond.
ACTIVATE is a series of short taster workshops consisting of Self- Expression Workshops; on anything from performance arts to digital content creation to yoga, alongside themes including race, religion, activism, sexuality, power or anything in between. AS WELL AS Creative Industry Workshops e.g. freelancing, marketing, project/ event planning, looking after your mental health and performance.
ACKNOWLEDGE uses spoken word poetry and discussion based activities to enable young people to find their authentic voice and capture it through the creation of films, photographs and visual art. Finally using live performance and social media in a targeted way to amplify their voices, influence their community and eventually wider society, demanding they be acknowledged.
AMPLIFY is a 16 wk project in which we build collectives of paid young associates and support them to curate and produce their own event, in which young raw talent and more established artists take an audience on an inspirational journey through performance arts; underpinned by a specific theme and working towards removing barriers to the arts, amplifying silenced voices and bringing communities together.