Power to Make a Change

Power to Make a Change is a 5-year project funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, working with children and young people in the borough
of Enfield. We work closely with Secondary Schools in the borough and Local Community groups to offer young people workshops in schools and the community. Our workshops are tailored specifically to the needs of the young people covering a range of topics such as gang, gun and knife crime, making the right choices, building self-esteem, mental health, social media and peer pressures and many more. Our workshops aim to motivate, inspire and enable young people to have the confidence and self-esteem to make the right choices in life and to not engage in risky behaviour and gang crime.

During the workshops we gather all the themes and issues raised by young people which forms a script for a theatre production. Due to the impact of covid we have not been able to deliver a theatre production, therefore we produced two short films in years 1 and 2 of the project which portray the experiences of the young people we worked with.

We use the films to form a basis of the workshops, creating a base for discussion.

We are currently in the third year of the project and we will continue to work with the young people to inspire, motivate and listen to their voices.

  • We have carried out 40 workshops over the 2 years of the project, reaching out to 1,200 young people. We are continuing with the delivery of the workshops in year 3 of the project and are busy engaging young people, gathering their themes and experiences to inform the script of the film/ theatre production.

    Our workshops use various aspects of the creative arts to engage young people, this includes using spoken words, dance and drama to gather information and inspire young people. The workshops give young people a safe platform to speak and share about the challenges they face everyday, whilst building their confidence and providing creative tools to express themselves in a positive way.

    We have teamed up with Stuart Lawrence and we are together delivering motivational sessions for young people in schools as part of the project. These sessions focus on being the best person you can be and using your determination to create a better world for others.

  • Mentoring

    We offer mentoring to young people who require further intervention and support them on a weekly basis. We are currently working with a group of

    5 young people who participate in all our workshops as well as offer them volunteer opportunities during our weekend performing arts school. We have seen a huge difference in the young people in this group, as they have grown in confidence, have a sense of purpose and belonging.

  • We have a group of 7 young people who form the steering group for the project. This project is all about listening to the voices of the young people and we use the young people in the steering group to discuss aspects of the project, exploring what’s working well, what is not working so well and what we need to change.

  • The original proposal was to use the themes gathered in the workshops to produce a script for a live theatre performance for young people to watch. However, due to the covid pandemic and restrictions we were unable to produce a live theatre production for years 1 and 2 of the project. Therefore, it was decided along with the steering group to produce a film.

    Film 1 (year 1 of the project) was produced using the themes gathered from the workshops which covered gangs, knife crime, peer pressure, gaming, bullying, sexualisation, feeling different.

    Film 2 (the film you are watching today is year 2 of the project) was produced using the themes gathered from the workshops which covered mental health, sexualisation, social media/music influence, betrayal, isolation, making the right choices, belonging and fitting in with peers.

  • We are currently working with the young people in year 3 of the project to gather their experiences to inform the next script. We will continue to offer the outreach, mentoring and specialist workshops to our young people to engage them in positive activities.

    Through all our work with young people over the years and during this project, we have found that young people who do not get the grades academically and whom lack direction, may wish to pursue a career and further develop their skills in the performing and creative arts. However, often many young people are from disadvantaged back grounds who cannot afford to attend a creative arts college and have the means to start up their creative business. We are hoping to develop a project which will support young people from disadvantaged back grounds to support them with becoming creatives.

    We hope you feel inspired by the film, these are the voices of the young people. Together we can make a difference, if we listen to their voices and help young people to be the best person they can be.