Speak Out

Between May and July 2021, we worked once again with Nugent, a charity that cares for, educates, and protects vulnerable children, young people and young adults. Our focus this time was ‘Speak Out’. In this project, we focused on historic peace and protest movements. Using these as inspiration, we explored how to use art and creativity to communicate what was really important to us.

Project Leads Cat Foley and Alison Down helped us to explore different creative ways to engage with our own histories.

We learned about Graffiti Art and slogan t-shirts, and how they have been used to speak out against injustices and show support for different causes. We then had a go at creating our own versions with masking tape and customising our own tops.

We also made Blue Plaques and dedicated them to the special people in our lives.

Poetry became a really important way for us to express ourselves and ‘speak out’ about what is important to us. You can read two of our poems below.

 

Our Poems

And People...

And when Sophie was four

She said

She liked the mud,

Because it was fun

And different.

And it made her feel happy and independent –

people smiled.

 

When Sophie was seven

She said she still liked the mud

Because it was fun

And different.

And it made her feel rebellious and strong –

People ignored

 

When Sophie was twelve

She said she liked the mud

Because it was fun!

And different!

And it made her feel safe and secure –

People got upset.

 

When Sophie was twelve

She said she liked the mud

Because it was fun!

And different!

But!

It made her clothes dirty!

People got upset

And people shouted.

 

Sophie is an adult now

Her daughter said she liked the mud

Because it is fun and different!

 

And Sophie shouted.

Justice

I felt like I’d met him

He was only a kid, 16 years old

I feel like I’ve seen him

His photos the background of my phone

Part of my Heritage

 

My dad says he loved his footie

Loved LFC

Just like me and my dad,

Who’s got Liverbirds engraved on one of his shoulders

And 96 inked on the other.

 

Justice for the 96!

Justice for Peter!

Respect the ones that lost their families

 

They’ve lost

Lost the ones they’ve loved and still love

They’ve fought and they are fighting

People still don’t listen!

But they hold their heads up high

And they’re not afraid.

 

And if they walk on

I walk on

So they’ll never walk alone

I feel like he’s still here

I have hope for Justice

At the end of our project, all of the facilitators shared the work created in a celebratory video, which anonymously lifted the voices of all the young people involved. You can watch it here. We hope you enjoy hearing our words.

“I hope the young people are really proud of their courage, resilience and creativity during this project.”

Cat Foley - Project Lead

In 2020, we worked with Nugent on Rise from the Rubble, a project inspired by the events of the Second World War.