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Oldham Youth Inclusion Project
Post-16 Citizenship activity at Oldham Youth Inclusion Project
Citizenship programmes which will be running during 2006/7 academic year include a range of HipHop citizenship through Music workshops addressing issues identified by young people attending Hathershaw College of Technology.
Using a mixture of informed discussions and debates around these issues we aim to empower three cohorts of young people, taking part in the sessions, to write and produce HipHop based songs that explore the citizenship issues raised. This is geared to tie in alongside the citizenship agenda delivered by the school but will also engage young people identified as being at risk of social exclusion within the community.
Having used music and lyric writing in HipHop as a part of previous citizenship work we learned that it is a valuable tool in engaging sometimes 'hard to reach' young people. It is a very accessible media to young people which they can identify with, giving them the opportunity to understand and share views around issues that affect their own and other people's lives.
Previous workshops led to a group submitting what turned out to be the winning entry to LSN's Citizenship through Music lyric writing competition and has led to further work with the young people involved.
Citizenship coordinator's top tips for setting up post-16 citizenship activity:
- Keep things simple, don’t go over the heads of the young people you are working with
- Be led by the young people, they are the people who know what is affecting them
- Start with issues that are close to home, once these are clearer, the bigger picture is clearer to explore
- Don’t discount views, they are all relevant.
How this organisation could help you:
We are able to offer help to people wanting to get involved with similar Citizenship work to ourselves. We have a DVD that was made during the Citizenship through Music competition last year. This gives a small insight to the way we went about approaching the topics (and also shows us winning!!)
We would be happy to discuss and arrange any visits that people would like to make to the sessions. For more information see also the Oldham Youth Inclusion Project leaflet on post-16 citizenship activity.
Contact information
Name of citizenship coordinator: Chris Claydon
Citizenship coordinator’s telephone:
0161 626 4778
Citizenship coordinator’s email: christianclaydon@positivestepsoldham.org.uk
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