What is Project Creativity? The Vision, The Purpose, The Why and The Next Step!

Today, we’re bringing you something very special from some of our 2020/21 City Year Mentors: an insight into Project Creativity! This incredible volunteer-led initiative has been a huge hit, and we’re so excited for you to learn more about it.

Over to Chris and Emma-Louise from the team to tell us more…

“We are Project Creativity, a value-based project within City Year born to support future VMs, City Year as a brand and children across the country.

Emma-Louise Smith approached her Bridge Builder about doing a Creative Project before her time as a City Year Mentor was up. Feeling inspired, Emma found a co-partner in Chris Cownden who had started producing motivational videos on the side and was looking to engage more people across the West Midlands who wanted to help. Emma and Chris decided to team up with 14 other eager creatives…and Project Creativity came to life.

The vision for Project Creativity was clear. To support and mentor children from a distance in the most creative way possible. We wanted to make a difference while the country was on standby by producing content that inspired, motivated, educated and brought people together. We used the lockdown to connect with other City Year Mentors and turned the lockdown into an opportunity to make a difference, rather than an excuse or give up.

We launched several projects for school children across the West Midlands region and for City Year UK and they’ve all been a success in one way or another – including a literacy competition, after school club resources, volunteer testimonial videos, and we’ve also hosted a learning and development session. We’ve created relationships with more children, we’ve created stronger bonds with the City Year senior leadership team and trustees and we’ve created a community project that represents City Year through and through.

Here’s one of the videos we created – watch along to see what we’re all about!

Thanks to Chris and Emma-Louise for giving us a window into their project – we’re so proud of what they’ve created! To find out more about what kind of projects they have been working on, stay tuned for their next blog post!