Imaginate is delighted to announce it has received a Young Start award from The National Lottery Community Fund which will fund the development of Creative Encounters.
Creative Encounters is Imaginate’s flagship three-year project in partnership with North Edinburgh Arts focused on the incorporation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. In 2023/24, we are working with Forthview Primary School and Pilton Youth & Children's Project.
Pupils from our partner Forthview Primary School share more about the project below.
Blog by Forthview Primary School children
“It’s something that lets me be myself and I get to be free and do fun things!” – Tasfiah, 11
Hi!
We are part of the Creative Encounters team at Forthview Primary. There are 16 of us in the team but the people writing this are:
- Willow
- Reel
- Abdulaziz
- Mesake
What is the Creative Encounters project?
It’s about Children Rights and we are a team of children who have decided to join Imaginate and change the world! We slay (that means cool).
It’s run by Lou and Anna. They are the people from Imaginate who make fun activities about children’s rights like UNCRC bingo, and they get artists to come and meet us.
We got special permission to leave class to do lots of different things like:
- Making posters and badges
- Making stop motion films
- Taking photographs
- Meeting artists and given some of them jobs (more on this next year!)
- Meeting Sophie, Fiona, Noel, and Pam from the Imaginate team
We look forward to Fridays because Creative Encounters makes Fridays fun and more exciting. It makes us happy and we are excited for what we’re going to do in the future.
Creative Encounters & Children’s Rights
Imaginate know that adults are boring and they knew that amazing geniuses went to Forthview Primary School so they came to work with us.
All the shows in the world are always presented by adults, but children have a bigger imagination, it’s never-ending. The point of Imaginate is to influence children so that they can make shows for themselves now and in the future.
We learned that on Wednesday 7th December, politicians at Scottish Parliament voted to incorporate the UNCRC into Scots Law. It’s amazing that this has happened because kids deserve children's rights, and now they are extra protected.
What’s next?
- We will launch our news channel on Imaginate's YouTube - check out our Breaking News teaser trailers we made using stop motion, and subscribe to the channel!
- We will announce our commissioned artists who will present at the North Edinburgh Community Festival and the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival Family Encounters.
- We will go on trips to the Children’s Festival where we will get free food!
Thanks for reading our blog!
Young Start Award and PYCP
Imaginate have been working with Forthview Primary School on this project since October 2022. The funding from Young Start is allowing us to expand the reach of the project to include community groups too. In the 2023/24 school year, we are delighted to be working with Pilton Youth & Children's Project (PYCP), and we are excited that the funding from Young Start will allow us to work with two more community groups in North Edinburgh in 2024/25.
PYCP is an amazing community organisation which offers open access activities and targeted support for ages 5 to 18. Willow, a P6 Forthview pupil who also attends PYCP, described them as “a club for children, it is fun and kind, you get to do loads of activities like baking and art, and work with Imaginate too.”
Our PYCP shortlisting committee visited the Imaginate offices in November to read through submissions from artists. Look out for their announcement of their commissioned artist in the new year!
If you want to talk to Imaginate about Creative Encounters, please get in touch with:
Lou Brodie
Creative Projects Facilitator
lou@imaginate.org.uk