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Rolling out the red carpet for Brynaman youth awards
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Mess Up The Mess Theatre Company is hitting the headlines once again with their upcoming Awards Night for young people involved in the Strangers international heritage project.
Over the past 18 months, thanks to £25,000 funding support from the Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots grant programme, young people from Brynaman and surrounding villages have been learning about their cultural identity through researching life in the Welsh mining area.
Over 30 young people aged 13-25 have been involved in the programme in which they have been mentored by professional theatre practitioners, film makers and digital experts. The young people were also supported by the local Merched y Wawr group for oral history research along with Ammanford Library and the National Museum of Wales, St Fagans to create an original play about how the past affects their lives today.
But the story doesn’t end there. Throughout the project Mess Up The Mess shared their newfound knowledge and ideas with two other groups of young people in England and New Zealand by regularly communicating over the internet via webcam and an international project blog. Groups of young people would gather at Brynaman Community Centre at 8am for tea and toast in order to beat the time difference with the New Zealand group before they went to bed!
The three teams shared folk songs and questioned use of local slang and words and expressions from their newfound languages. The young people of Slough for example remarked upon the teaching of lessons through Welsh having a parallel with the lessons taught in Urdu in their own schools, whilst the young people of Wales discovered a strong connection with the Mauri young people and their mother tongue.
These global connections led to three original performances being produced in three countries with three powerful stories to tell brand new audiences across the globe. In Wales the group was fortunate enough to perform extra shows at the National Museum of Wales to celebrate St David’s Day and they have since represented Wales at the Institute for Global Ethics UK Trust Impetus Awards Showcase in London for their work addressing human rights through the project.
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Keith Towler will be presenting the young people with their awards during Carmarthenshire’s Multicultural Week on December 9th at the new conference suite in Brynaman Community Centre where the young people will lead the proceedings and launch the documentary film Strangers along with their own short film ‘Miming in Brynaman’.
Peri Thomas, Youth Arts Manager of Mess Up The Mess says “This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the work of the young people involved in the project and to highlight the importance of connecting young people with their past in new and exciting ways. The Heritage Lottery Fund Wales has made this project possible and we are thrilled that Strangers has been such a success on a local, national and global scale.”
Jennifer Stewart, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund, Wales said “From experience, we know that young people are interested in their history and the stories that exist in their communities. But, young people are only interested if they have a say in how the project is run. This project has been so successful because the young people were involved right from the very beginning and were asked what type of project they wanted to create. Everyone involved should be very pleased with themselves!”.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008 |
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