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ALL ABOUT ME, ALL ABOUT US
Description
At the heart of this programme is the development of children and young people. The combined roles of the professional artist and youth worker is vital to the programmes development. Common Ground strives to develop and maintain strong, key relationships between Common Ground and a variety of youth organisations, identified as voluntary youth clubs, homework clubs/after-school projects and community youth projects.
Current projects
Music For Me
The Music for Me programme is now moving into its fourth
year and has expanded considerably since its inception in the
Dolphin House Homework Club in April 2005. A short ‘Introduction to
Music’ programme in April of that year provided the genesis of what
was to become the ‘Dolphin House Music Club’ where children between
the ages of 6-12years of age came together at regular intervals to
play and perform a broad range of percussive and musical instruments
facilitated by musicians Elaine Agnew, Klaus Vormehr, Dara O’ Brien
and Nick Roth.
In April 2007, in a culmination of nearly two years of the
programme, an exciting musical performance of both Irish and
International music was staged by the ‘Dolphin House Music Club’ in
the Rotunda Room of Dublin City Hall.
From September 2007 the programme continued to expand into
Fatima Homework Club and the After Schools of the FRC St Michael’s
Estate. New tutors have been introduced and workshops and
performances scheduled throughout 2008. We are currently in
development on a number of new and exciting programme elements
including; a pilot singing programme, further expansion of the
weekly guitar and keyboard tuition programmes plus our Introduction
to music sessions; featuring a diverse programme of workshop and
performances throughout the year ahead
Music equipment for this programme have been donated to Common Ground’s musical instrument bank by the IRMA Trust and also purchased through Dormant Accounts Funding.
Moving On Up
This programme is a five day educational and theme based arts programme for young people at risk of early school leaving who are making the Transition from 6th Class in Primary School to 1st Year in Secondary School.
Using a specific multi disciplinary arts approach and process, the programme seeks to enable the young people participating to explore and examine the themes and issues that are of relevance and concern to them prior to beginning the journey into the Secondary School Educational system.
This programme came about when Common Ground was approached in January 2006 by the Fatima Homework Club with a request to work with a group of young people, that were currently attending their service, that would be making the transition from primary to secondary school in September 2006. A working group comprising of the three homework clubs in the area and the Canal Communities Regional Youth Service was established by Common Ground and the Fatima Homework Club to explore the themes and issues that the co-ordinators of the homework clubs felt that the Moving On Up arts programme could address.
Phase One of this programme was piloted in 2006 with seven young people who attended the Fatima Homework Club, in Rialto, Dublin 8.
Phase Two of the programme was piloted in August 2007 and was expanded to run in both Fatima and Dolphin House Homework Clubs. The programme was attended by five Young People (two boys and three girls) in Fatima and by five Young People (three boys and two girls) in Dolphin House. It was also extended to run over five consecutive days.
Phase Three of the programme is to begin its planning stage with our programme partners in February 2008 and aims to expand across the three Homework Clubs to include
the After Schools of the FRC St Michael’s Estate for the 2008 programme.
A report on the 2006 School Transition Programme is available from Common Ground.
‘About Me’ Photography Programme
After-school project of the FRC, St Michaels Estate
- from Summer 2005 the children of the After-school project of the FRC, St Michael Estate have worked with photographer Darragh Shanahan. Children aged between five and twelve years of age have explored and responded to their immediate locality through the medium of photography. In May 2006, an exhibition of this work, ‘Stick Stories’, took place in IMMA.
The programme is continuing throughout 2007 with photographic exchanges with children from India and Kenya through the collaboration of the development organisation, Suas the educational wing of Concern.
In September 2007 the group began a new phase of the programme
entitled ‘Craft a Frame’. In this phase, Darragh aims to get the
children to hone their photographic skills by creating a studio
environment for them to work from. As part of this, they have begun
composing their own portraits and those of other children in the
group and are creating their own frames for these in a further craft
session. It is hoped to exhibit work from this and last years Suas
project in the summer of 2008.
Dancing My Way
Since 2005 we have been running a series of short term dance
programmes with some of the Youth Clubs and Groups in the area with
the dancers; Michelle Cahill, Megan Kennedy and Jessica Kennedy. We
are currently in development for a new dance programme entitled
‘Dancing My Way’. It is hoped that this programme will be piloted as
part of the spring 2008 programme.
Community Youth Projects
Common Ground is committed to long-term arts development in collaboration with Bluebell Youth Project, Rialto Youth Project and St Michaels Youth Project. These youth projects are community based and work with young people considered ‘most at risk’.
At its core is Common Ground’s belief in:
• Cultural rights and entitlement as opposed to just access and participation
• long term sustainable socially engaged arts practice
• a meaningful engaged response that could be both political and deeply developmental
‘What’s the Story’ Rialto Youth Project – our collaboration with Rialto Youth Project and visual artist Fiona Whelan began in January 2005. To date the young people and Fiona Whelan have created two large scale public murals sited at Fatima Luas stop and on the gable end of Dolphin House Youth Centre, Dolphin House Flats Complex. In April 2007 they travelled to America to visit the Philadelphia Mural Arts Programme where they contributed to a large scale mural with another group of young people from Philadelphia.
St Michaels Youth Project – the visual artist Terry Blake started working in November 2005 with a group of young people aged 13 to 17 years. They completed a mock-u-mentary drama film. The group began another film process in the Autumn of 2006 based on what they identified as current and relevant issues for them and their lives. Currently Terry Blake and a group of young men are focusing on a visual arts project involving painting directly onto car bonnets and doors which will be installed in St Michael’s Estate in Summer/Autumn 2008.
Bluebell Youth Project – in 2006, visual artist Terry Blake worked with a mixed group of young people aged 13 to 17 years, exploring what it is like to work with an artist and experimenting with the endless possibilities of the arts. In 2007 Common Ground and Bluebell Youth Project have begun a phase of planning and development to integrate arts and culture into the programme of work with young people over the next two years. The aim is to have an arts programme integrated into the project programme by
Spring 2008.
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