Project Type:
Community & social inclusion

Dates:
June - December 2021

Participant Group:
Children from Migrant and Traveller communities

Artist:
Julie Forrester

Partners:
Sligo Family Resource Centre & Sligo Traveller Support Group

Funders:
RTÉ Does Comic Relief & Community Foundation

All in

All In is a research report and online series of workshops that looks at how our child-led, child-centred model of engagement with professional artists can be brought to children and young people, particularly those who have limited access to technology and who are from communities already experiencing social exclusion and disadvantage.

During November and December 2021, children from Sligo Traveller Support Group Homework Club and Sligo Family Resource Centre participated in a series of pilot online workshops creating digital art with Associate Artist Julie Forrester. We worked closely with both our Sligo partners to include children that would enjoy and benefit from this project.

This small-scale project involved two creative sessions with each group, during which the children worked entirely online with artist Julie Forrester to create animations. Julie tuned into the creative workshops via Zoom from her studio in Cork. The children created their own artworks from different materials, making stop-motion animations using an app on electronic tablets. See their beautiful animation above!

These workshops were hugely beneficial in terms of trailling a new way of working online that puts children at the centre as active collaborators with artists, rather than as consumers of online content. This project has value for all of our future programmes, as the learning from this pilot online programme will inform future online collaborative projects with children.

In June 2021, we engaged Dr Amy Hanna as our Independent Researcher into Digital and Cultural Access for Children and Young People in the Northwest. Amy and Kids’ Own worked with a Young Person Advisory Group, who advised and guided Amy’s research, including shaping her questions and approach. We also had a separate group of children and young people involved as participants in this study. They shared their lived experiences with us in order to help us to explore these issues of digital and cultural access.

This initial and limited scoping study had three main points of focus:

  • Who might benefit most from online creative programmes that allow for open-ended, meaningful engagement with the arts?
  • What are the needs of the children and young people that have been identified by the study, in terms of digital and cultural access?
  • How can Kids’ Own develop a pilot online arts programme in response to the results of the scoping study?

We will be launching a report on these findings in Spring 2022.

This project was kindly funded by RTE Does Comic Relief and Community Foundation.

 

We are delighted to launch Dr Amy Hanna’s research findings into Digital and Cultural Access for Children and Young People in the Northwest. The aim of the scoping study was to identify children and young people’s (particularly those who are marginalised) needs and experiences of accessing cultural and Arts programmes online.

Accessing the Arts presents the findings of the scoping study under four themes: opportunities and challenges; learning and development; information and resources; and accessibility and communication.

Read the full study here

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