Who are we and what we do
We are National youth arts advisory group (NYAAG) for Scotland (previously known as Youth Arts Voice Scotland YAVS) . We are a group of 32 young creatives aged between 15 and 23 that are living or studying in Scotland. Our role is to directly advise Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government on Scotland’s national youth art strategy called “Time To Shine".
The group hosts 4-5 development residentials a year however we also use the project management tool BaseCamp to stay up to date and in contact with each other in between these residentials as it can be hard to get us all in the one place with work, school, uni and just life getting in the way sometimes.
This year the group has split into 4 main sub-groups, The advocacy group, Peak /\, Uncon2.0 and transpositions. This is to allow the group to have a greater focus on each mini project as well as feeding into the strategy development as a whole, The Nurturing Talent fund and the our shared world project, but all will be explained as we go on.
The Advocacy Group
The Advocacy groups aim is to help promote and spread the word of what the group is working on through social media and a wide range of multi media methods. The Advocacy group works directly with media education Scotland to ensure that all work produced is of the highest quality and to allow the group members to be professionally trained in their chosen fields.
The group is currently working on soundbite videos from NYAAG members themselves about why they believe that art, creativity and culture are vital within our society and the positive impacts they have had on our own lives. The group has also designed posters promoting these very messages and are currently establishing social media profiles to share this content on.
The Advocacy group also provides instrumental documentation of all feedback sessions to the main group and also help capture feedback from the sector wide working group that some members of NYAAG chair every quarter.
PEAK (/\)
PEAK (/\) has been tasked with the delivery of the youth forum that will run directly alongside the Edinburgh International Culture Summit (EICS) 2018 by the British Council.
The summit brings together culture ministers, ambassadors, advisors and leading sector heads to allow discussions on best practice and issues facing the international cultural community. This is all set and hosted in the Scottish Parliament building behind the back drop of the fringe festival.
The three main development themes for the youth summit are;
Culture and wellbeing – Can culture make a contribution to the health and well-being of human society?
Culture in a networked world – How can we encourage an inclusive and accepting attitudes through culture?
Culture and investment – should policy invest in people as opposed to infrastructure?
Transpositions 2018
The transposition team (that’s my sub group!) aims to conduct a cultural exchange between ourselves and a very similar group in Denmark.
As Scotland and Denmark are the only countries in the world that have a national youth arts policy that place a group of young people at the heart of the decision making process, it was a no brainer for us that we had to meet and share our experiences with this group in the Denmark.
The Danish leg of the exchange will take place in early April 18, and will focus on broadening each groups cultural awareness, highlighting best practice from both strategies and host countries and allow time for reflection and discussion about the future of youth voices in cultural policy. The Scottish leg of the exchange will take place in September.
Uncon2.0
The uncon2.0 is working on creating the second national UNconvention. The UNcon2.0 will be building on the success of the first Uncon held at the SWG3 in Oct. 2016.
The event aims to combine a showcase of amazing work that NYAAG and young creatives is Scotland have been producing but also to share best practice and learning for the sector as a whole.
The UNcon2.0 is still very much in its development stage however the event will be held in Perth Theatre on Sept. 22nd 2018.
I hope this gives you a little more insight into the wonderful world of NYAAG.For more information on Time To Shine please follow the link below: