In February, MADE launched an exciting pilot project with 5 schools from across Manchester.
MADE believes that knowledge about the kinds of careers you can find in the arts should be an essential part of every school’s careers programme. With this in mind, we brought together our experts on Youth Voice and Employability to begin building a leadership programme that would introduce young people aged 14+ to the arts & culture venues on their doorstep. Over 6 months, they will be hosted by 6 different venues and meet the inspirational people running them.
We’re building this programme with their thoughts and insights in mind, working responsively according to what they are interested in learning, and what skills they want to build. We’ll take them through the stages of leading a creative project from start to finish with guidance from Manchester’s inspirational arts leaders, take them behind the scenes of arts venues, and building an action plan to keep growing.
Our first session took place at Z-arts.
Liz O’Neill, CEO of Z-arts, took them through her journey from theatre company director to head of a children’s theatre venue.
Deborah Davidson of Comino Foundation then led a session to begin introducing the group to the kind of creative, strategic thinking an arts leader must do. The group took the initiative in creating project ideas to help recruit more young people to MADE’s mission and increase our engagement in schools.
The group shadowed a steward briefing and learnt about programming with their Head of Programming, Zoe Pickering.
The session ended with a Q&A with the technical team and lead actor of Les Enfants Terribles: A Game Show for Awful Children, arranged in response to their interest in jobs in theatre.
The group especially liked...
“that we are going to the theatre”
“had lots of discussions learning about everyones jobs”
“we got to know each other and whatwe are going to do in these sessions”
“learning about everything and getting my thoughts across in the group”
And they learnt...
“career options around”
“relationship building - spoke a lot more to everyone”
“active listening by listening to all the information about made”
“leadership and group working as we came together and got loads of ideas on what to do”
“active listening by taking ideas and transferring to my career life”
We’ll continue to bring you updates on the pilot programme, including the venues we’ve visited and what kind of careers we’ve introduced to our group. Stay tuned for more!
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