Last Saturday, Kids’ Own hosted another engaging session of the Youth Advisory Group (YAG), attended by lots of very enthusiastic children! The session kicked off with an activity where the kids crafted buildings and sculptures using small wooden blocks.  In the previous creative session, artist Andy Parsons had started making sculptures with the children from different and unusual materials. For this session, Andy left the group a bag of surprise materials and is looking forward to seeing the creations when he is back next month!

Sarah, one of our Associate Writers, shared her thoughts on the session. Here, she reflects on the joy of this creative work, and how this is a way of beginning to invite children to think about planning, making decisions, and creating a strategy, as we talk with the Youth Advisory Group about Kids’ Own’s new Strategic Plan:

“For the third session of the Kids’ Own Youth Advisory Group, we continued with our theme of structure. Our last session involved creating sculptures out of bamboo sticks and tape. For this session we added to the challenge by using Jenga-like wooden blocks and glue. The kids immediately began forming a variety of structures varying from block-men to buildings. The use of glue proved to be an interesting challenge to Mary and me, how quickly could we clean it up before it dried? Not quick enough! But there was a lot to be learned. When reflecting on sculpture and building structures, how do we plan? What decisions do we make? What strategies do we choose? All in all, it was a very interactive activity. And we have some talented budding architects in our group. Disclaimer: Mary and I are not professional Construction Project Managers, but we’re a dab hand at moving ‘apartments’ across a room on cardboard.”

The Kids’ Own YAG was established to give children a voice in all aspects of the organisation, including our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, and our new Strategic Plan. The session was a hands-on, creative experience that encouraged the kids to think critically and work collaboratively.

We look forward to seeing what our budding architects will create next!

Thank you to the Arts Council for kindly funding this project.

Read more about our YAG here: https://kidsown.ie/our-youth-advisory-group-returns-for-2024/