Meeting Life as a Creative Adventure
Meeting Life as a Creative Adventure is an exciting new programme. It’s an opportunity to take time out to explore who you are, the values that really matter to you and learn more about where you want to be in life. It’s an adventure that stimulates new thoughts, encourages creativity and offers a space to explore next steps.
The online course runs over 6 weeks, purposefully designed for small groups of 18-24 year olds living in Gloucestershire. It’s a great opportunity to meet other young people and to listen and learn from each other in a safe, supported environment. We know that the last year or so has been very difficult for young people – it’s been hard. This opportunity will help you to regroup and discover the things that energise you. Meeting Life as a Creative Adventure will encourage you to feel empowered and thrive.
How does it work?
Each week comprises a 2 hour live online session and a 1 hour personal workout. The programme is highly interactive, with whole group inputs, small group activity in breakout rooms and one on one conversations.
On the course we use different tools and frameworks to guide us through the programme and to access our thoughts, feelings and ideas creatively. We know it can be difficult to articulate ideas sometimes and by tapping into our creativity - using words, images, music and artefacts we can sometimes surface insights that might have remained hidden. (By the way, how you do this is entirely up to you - no-one will force you to pick up a needle and thread - that's just not how we roll!). Here' are a couple of examples:
Life story
Shekinah used embroidery to tell her story. The different colours represented different parts of her life.
Playing with Haiku
Flo’s haiku was brought to life with beautiful hand printed fonts, paper and brightly coloured paint.
You will also undertake a creative brief each week - some kind of activity that supports your journey on the programme.
All this will make more sense when you are actually participating on the course, but to help paint a picture of what the course entails and what the benefits might be for you, we asked some of the previous cohort to share their thoughts and feelings about it. Watch these videos to hear from the people who know!
Shekinah talks about meeting new people and growing in the group.
Flo answers the question ‘What does creativity mean to you?’
Charlie talks about gaining new insights about himself from the group.
Abs gives us one word to describe his experience of Meeting Life.
Ellie answers the question ‘Is there something in it for you?’
Secon describes Meeting life in her own words.
Who’s it for?
For 18 - 24 year old young adults who want a "mood 360" (thanks to Secon from our first cohort for the great term!), and some space to consider their own values, motivation and magic. It is for those who are creatively minded, wanting to figure out their future and connect with others.
We are actively seeking a diverse group of young people. You might be at college, be navigating life with a visible or hidden disability, be a young parent, be out of work (or in a job you don't want to do!). You might be crystal clear about where you are going- or lost and unclear about what to do next. The key thing is to have an appetite to move forward in a new way and an interest to meet others doing the same.
We know that people from minority ethnic backgrounds are under-represented in programmes like this, both in Gloucestershire and nationally. We would like to address this inequality in the recruitment for ML as we know the group will be strengthened and improved if we enable the voices of diverse young people to be heard and understood – recognising that change is facilitated by leadership and driven by us all. As a team we are anti-racist and aspiring for racial equity.
We are currently recruiting for the next programme which is due to start in November.
Whatever you are doing right now, we’d love to hear from you.
Key facts
Dates: Every Tuesday – starting 2nd November 2021 until 14th December 2021.
Time: 4-6pm plus 1 hour workout between sessions.
Cost: The course is free to participants as the costs have been fully covered by our funders, Thirty Percy. There is also an access and carers support fund available to contribute towards any costs you might have that could help you attend the programme.
Interested?
If you are interested in joining us please email Tracey at Create Gloucestershire to arrange a chat in the first instance. And feel free to let us know about any access requirements you may have so that we can make sure the sessions can be right for you.
More info on our partnership with nowhere:
Create Gloucestershire and nowhere are working together to test an innovative model of leadership that is place-based. Our partnership combines the expertise of nowhere in developing the skills and mindsets of creative and collaborative organisations with CG’s skills and networks in place-based development across Gloucestershire.
We have co-designed two programmes.
Meeting Life as a Creative Adventure for young people aged 18-24
Catalyst for change agents who want to enable the communities they live in to be both more creative and to support equality.
We are currently working on a Collaboratory that will be a space for leaders across Gloucestershire to unlock change through a system-wide challenge or opportunity.
Read more about nowhere and their wider meeting life programme here: https://www.now-here.com/meeting-life