* youth & well-being forum * community day * young artists curate Green Table cafe exhibition & workshops * South Devon college helpers * school art days & exams
Lots of positive stuff is afoot in our drive to bring more young people to Arts Lab and Dartington, listening to and learning from them and providing a platform to develop and grow through art. Hang on to your hats! There’s a lot here ……
Youth and well-being forum at Foxhole, 25th May
‘When Philip Franses and the Global Synapses team invited input from the Apricot Centre around ways of bringing practical action around themes such as the well-being of young people in Devon, I was quickly inspired to set up an Open Forum on the theme. I have various colleagues trained in Process Oriented Psychology and Deep Democracy Open Forum facilitation, and the Apricot Centre is a well-being service becoming established at Huxhams Cross Biodynamic Farm in Week next to Dartington. A group of facilitators have been discussing for several months that we would like to do something together within the local communities, and Sue and Dick were quick to offer their skills as well as Lea Misan who runs Act for Change in London. I then reached out to Sara Downham-Lotto who runs Arts Lab at Dartington and this yielded multiple benefits with her unique ways of engaging people creatively becoming an inspiring part of the afternoon, and also young artists from Arts Lab decided to take up the invitation to step into the unknown. They played an important part throughout the day with their voices, presence, creativity and projects embroidered into the forum. Also attending were YOT and youth workers, local authority managers, a representative of the Torbay Youth Trust, mentors and therapists from the Apricot Centre team, healers, locals, social workers, artists and more… I think there were just under 40 attending.’
Below are some of the drawings twenty-one year old Jordan Reynolds made capturing the essence of the day.