Keisha Riley-Douglas, 21, is holding a measuring tape against a teenage boy to fit him for his costume for next week’s performance at Sadler’s Wells theatre. It is not her first time working as a project support officer for All Change, a community-based arts project set in Islington, but it seems a long time since she first got involved in the organisation seven years ago as a fourteen-year-old new mother.
Two weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Nataleiah, Riley-Douglas decided to join a group of young parents in her borough that was working with professional artists and a local organisation to create a unique arts project. The premise then was simple: All Change believed that introducing a range of art forms to communities that might not otherwise experience them could give young people the skills to take control of their futures. Riley-Douglas, it seems, proves they were not wrong.
After creating an award-winning documentary, Babes, with the group and being awarded the highest academic qualification a creative practitioner can receive, a Gold Arts Award, she is now working with All Change to create Limelight: a show created by local 13 to 19 year olds, set to take place next Monday as part of the Connect Festival at Sadler’s Wells theatre. Made up of several groups of young people, the majority from social housing in London’s fourth most deprived borough, the event will showcase a myriad of arts forms, from poetry and photography to MC’ing and dance.
“Really, support is the main thing. To have that support network, in a different form than say the usual Connexions woman, helped me gain confidence, allowed me to meet new people and gain new skills,” Riley-Douglas said. “I am constantly learning and it’s interesting to be on the other side. It feels good to see young people develop their skills, as I did.”
Limelight is no volunteer-run Big Society project – it currently receives its £60,000 budget from Islington Council and social housing provider, Homes for Islington. However, despite its current healthy financial support, artistic director Suzanne Lee, 44, stressed that proving a creative arts project for teenagers is credible in this culture of cuts, can prove difficult.
“We are massively concerned because Islington as a local council has had to make enormous cuts and has had to protect core services,” she said, before revealing that the council will unfortunately have to remove its part of the funding for the project next year. “We know we are effective in engaging hard to reach young people and getting them involved in other things, but because arts can be seen as luxury project, it can be hard to argue its worth against the provision of a day care centre or rubbish collection.”
And yet for an organisation that strives to work specifically with teenagers who do not initially want to get involved in the arts, it has reached approximately one hundred young people over its four month Limelight project. While Lee believes that 13 to19 year olds are the “group that nobody has ever got quite right,” All Change’s style of workshops, the combination of different arts and its provision of professional artists to work alongside the groups of young people have proven popular amongst those involved.
“This project has been tough and it has pushed us quite a lot to our capabilities, but it has bought us closer and meant that we meet regularly as a group of friends,” said Che Narine, 13, from Islington, who is taking part in a group dance for Limelight and has written her own poem to read at the performance.
“I have learnt that I don’t have as much patience as I thought and also that I don’t always need to be in control. But, my favourite thing has been the use of photography in our rehearsals. I wasn’t really interested in it before, but having used it as part of the project has made me see it as an option I could like to do,” she added.
In fact, Limelight is the third performance of its kind that All Change has led and many of the show’s former artists have returned to mentor young people they have worked with previously. For Yemisi Blake, a 23-year-old spoken word artist, the project is about “signposting” opportunities that teenagers might not know are available to them.
“When Limelight finishes, young people can get involved in new projects we work on all-year-round. I hope those who are involved who have never tried creative sessions in other ways, could give it a go. Many young people haven’t had that chance and it is an opportunity to decide whether they are interested in the creative arts,” Blake said.
“If the young people we work with weren’t with us on a Friday night, they could possibly be in trouble. This isn’t just about making stuff up and having bit of fun, it is really, really important,” he added.
For Riley-Douglas, cuts to funding are not enough to discourage her belief in the role that a combination of arts can have on young people’s lives. While All Change works with people of all ages, she is aware that the young parents programme is only available for people in their teens. Riley-Douglas said she is hopeful about the possibility of expanding the project so that a wider range of people can receive the artistic support that she was offered.
“I want to help young parents to continue past the age of nineteen. People in their twenties are still young and still need help with their art,” she said. “It feels good to improve your skills at any age and I want to make sure more people here do.”
“Limelight” will be performed at Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Monday 14 March. Tickets are free.
