ChalleNGe’s Child Friendly Creative City

Kids and young adults’ voices will be heard loud and clear! The programme will see the creation of youth-led cultural experiences, for example local arts festivals and collaborative summer programmes.

ChalleNGe will also collaborate with Ignite’s Primary Parliament, which is a termly opportunity for primary school pupils to discuss global and local issues that are important to them. This programme will see them working with cultural organisations and specialists to create a city where they feel they have a meaningful say, and where they truly benefit from the local decisions, services and spaces that shape their lives.

ChalleNGe looks to support schools and arts partners with the creation and delivery of more inspirational and hands-on arts and cultural experiences.

It will also help make people aware of the rich creative and cultural opportunities that are already available to them. This includes many of the workshops, shows, and events hosted by Lakeside Arts. An example of this is our Gallery Art Group, which provides a collaborative and welcoming space for young people aged 11-18 to build their GCSE/ A-Level portfolios or work towards other projects. Or the Museum Explorers, which is a free drop-in session, allowing children to engage creatively with history, in the upcoming session on the 18th October, this will be learning about Viking longboats!  This of course comes at a crucial time, when financial pressures on families and arts organisations have increased, making this initiative ever more essential.

It also allows young people to discover places they can visit again (like Lakeside Arts) and opportunities they can get further involved with, encouraging life-long engagement with the arts. Children will learn that EVERYONE can enjoy and contribute to the arts and local culture.

With 42.7% of the population being BME, it is also essential the programme reflects and celebrates the rich heritage and cultural diversity of Nottingham. This will prioritise ensuring that young people grow up feeling connected to and valued by their city.

This aims to provide better training for our creative taskforce. Lakeside Arts provides CPD workshops that do so, helping carers, teachers, and artists to consider how to engage individuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities.

This initiative also looks to support the ‘art of belonging pledge’ for refugee children and like the cultural rucksack, the development of projects that reflect local heritage, languages and diversity. The training addresses combating inequalities to ensure more children and young people from all backgrounds can access and engage with arts and culture. Drawing in expertise from professionals working with mental health, special additional needs will also help with this goal.

This will improve wellbeing by connecting children with nature, building on local forest school networks, Nottingham Trent University and University of Nottingham environmental research and arts-based nature projects, while linking with other Child Friendly Cities around the world. 

Lakeside Arts, with its location in Highfields Park, attempts to further foster children’s engagement and respect for nature. Our Black and White children’s trail, inspired by our exhibition by Fishfingers Wrapped in Ham, is a free summer holidays activity that encourages children to explore the local park.

It will create a new collective fundraising scheme for children and young people to access arts and culture, using university research to track progress and better understand what children need. Parents will see their children flourish as barriers to museum visits, theatre trips, and creative workshops are removed, including exciting pop-up activities held at the Victoria Centre this summer.