St Radigunds Fun Day Community Centre event

The St Radigunds Community Centre Fun Day was an open-access event where our Creative Producer for Dover, Louise Webb, spent time with young people at the St Radigunds Community Centre engaging in fun activities with the young people and gathering their thoughts on what improvements they would like to see in the outdoor spaces they frequently visit.

Joao Caridade led the event, using a vintage-inspired analogue camera, while our Apprentice, Leanne Livermore, assisted us with the workshop. The young participants crafted masks from black and white card, which they later had the opportunity to colour. These young individuals also had the chance to take vintage-style photos of themselves wearing their masks. Originally, the plan was to encourage them to draw their ideas for enhancing their areas. However, Louise quickly realised that having conversations while making the masks proved much more effective in understanding the young people’s thoughts. It became evident that these young participants were more comfortable with discussions rather than engaging in writing exercises.

The event began on a windy note (and remained so), but after testing various locations, we managed to find an outdoor space to set up. Initially, it was relatively quiet, and Artswork was the only external organisation hosting a workshop. However, as soon as young people arrived, they were instantly captivated by Joao Caridade’s Old-Fashioned Styled Analogue Camera. After trying on one of Joao’s preexisting masks and experimenting with a photo, one young person kicked off the workshop and returned multiple times to create their own mask and take another photo.

Through this workshop, we discovered that this group of young people enjoy using the Community Centre, with drawing and painting being their preferred activities. They also expressed an interest in ceramics, 3D sculpture, fashion textiles, printing, wall mural painting, customising their bikes, and a few mentioned that they enjoy spending more time in nature and would love more opportunity to do so. Following the event, a young person’s mother approached us and expressed how much her child had enjoyed the event. We, also, provided all young participants with digital badges as a reward for taking part and printed paper certificates to explain what the digital badges are and how they can be used. We found ourselves with young people approaching us to request their certificates while we were preparing others. Observers and guardians made multiple positive comments about everyone having a great time and noted the improvement in the participants’ confidence. Most of the young participants provided feedback, and all expressed their gratitude.

We established a good relationship with the St Radigunds Community Centre, and they had a positive experience with us. The ideas and suggestions from these young individuals will be transformed into exciting creative projects in the future, with Artswork offering guidance and training to assist them in developing leadership skills and driving youth-led change.

This programme is supported using public funding from Arts Council England.