The Heritage Youth Partnership Newsletter - Aug 2024

Contents: Local Projects – News and Opportunities - Partnership Development -
Shared Learning - Youth Voice & Influence

Local Projects

Local project recruitment and support

There are some exciting plans afoot for heritage delivery starting in September. We remain open to local leaders to register their interest for projects taking place between now and February 2025.

Many units have begun their Explorer Activities, including:

1st Waddington Brownies in Lancashire’s amazing Heritage Shields;
1st Waddington Guides have been taking photos to contribute to the Missing Pieces project and are looking to update a local village heritage trail to raise money for a local charity;
Walton Police Cadets, who are on the hunt for listed places over the summer.

• We have Explore and Social Action Projects in the pipeline across the country, including in Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Northumberland/County Durham, Bristol, Lancashire, Merseyside, Yorkshire, Cheshire East, Cambridgeshire, South East London and West Sussex.
• We look forward to hearing updates as new delivery begins in September – please send us photos!

Take the Heritage Challenge! Funding available for social action projects

• We are still welcoming uniformed youth groups/leaders interested to deliver heritage-themed activity and youth-led social action projects.
• We have a 20-minute introductory webinar video for group leaders: “Take The Heritage Challenge”, including a tour of Hub resources and information about microgrants.
• Please share with any leaders who might be interested. The Expression of Interest form, for further information and access to the Hub, is here.
• We have microgrants available to support at least 10 social action projects. Group leaders can apply for up to £800 per partnership project, for expenses, materials and potential partners’ costs e.g. speakers, entry costs, celebration events. Each project will receive an evaluation pack and mentoring support. For more information watch the Take The Heritage Challenge video.

News and Opportunities

Kids In Museums - Takeover Day - 22 November 2024
Takeover Day is when museums, galleries, historic homes, archives and heritage sites empower young people to take over jobs normally done by adults. Over the years, young people have been tour guides, curators and conservators, co-curated exhibitions and events, including late night gigs and sleepovers, created merchandise and taken over museum social media channels.
 
Sign up, so they can add your event to the online map, provide you with support materials and information, and help to promote your event. They
have Takeover Day planning resources, including case studies, templates
and a step-by-step film guide, to help you plan your event.

Armistice Day 2024
The War Memorials Trust have a War Memorials Online website, to locate and update information and photos of local war memorials (from cenotaphs and windows to plaques in schools). They have a complementary suite of materials and examples by uniformed groups.

British Library Young Sparks – apply by 12 August.
A free five-day Animated Archives workshop for 14–17-year-olds. Young people will create their own short films, inspired by the British Library collection, and led by expert filmmakers. The first workshops take place 19-23 August, exploring animation and storytelling, at the British Library in St Pancras. by Monday 12 August. Fill out the short application form by Monday 12 August.

Partnership Development​

National Stakeholder Meetings

We have held three national stakeholders’ partnership meetings, to share news and learning. Recordings of these webinars are now available on the Hub.
 

Bilateral partnerships in development

One of the aims of this initiative is to foster partnership between uniformed groups and heritage organisations, both locally and nationally:

• Our national partnership between Girlguiding North West England and Historic England’s Heritage Schools team is progressing well. Activities are being tested in September by groups from the region, with support from Historic England.
• We are thrilled that Sea Cadets launched a Heritage Youth Research activity on Programmes Online, with more heritage social action project activities in development.
• We are grateful to Historic England for their efforts to connect regional group leaders with local heritage experts, to support exciting fledgling ideas for social action projects.
   

The future of the Heritage Youth Partnership

• Fundraising is one of the primary goals of this programme. We have continued to work on an updated theory of change and project plan, based on your survey replies in July (thank you to those who submitted their thoughts).
• We are in positive conversations with Historic England about the future of the Heritage Youth Partnership. We will provide further detail during the next Stakeholder Meeting on 12 September.
• If you would like to add any feedback to the national stakeholders’ survey – you can do so here.

Shared Learning​

Heritage Youth Partnership Online Hub

New materials, including case studies from Heritage projects within this initiative, will be uploaded as the project progresses. If you have something to share, please get in touch. Videos include:

• • Why Youth Social Action Makes Sense - #iwillMovement
  • Find Out What’s Special Near You - Historic England​

Youth Voice and Influence

• The Youth Reference Group held its second meeting on 24th June. Chaired by Young Associate Usman Ahmed (VPC and #iwill Ambassador), we reviewed the initiative’s continued promotion of youth participation. We highlighted the good practice of the Sea Cadets’ Cadet Voice, which was subsequently presented to the National Stakeholder Meeting later the same month.
• The young people will invite representative Ambassadors from the new Heritage Social Action projects to join in the autumn, to share support and good practice.

• #iwill Movement* The Youth Reference Group decided to reach out to the #iwillmovement network of hundreds of social action Ambassadors and Champions, to invite those in uniformed organisations to “Take the Heritage Challenge”.

*The #iwillMovement was launched as the #iwillCampaign by HM the King (then HRH Prince of Wales) in 2013 to promote and grow youth-led social action opportunities. The Heritage Youth Partnership aspires to their good practice standards for meaningful youth social action. The programme annually recruits ambassadors and champions from local projects. We hope to nominate young people from this Heritage initiative to be Ambassadors, in recognition of their leadership.

If you have any questions or you’re interested to be involved in the Heritage Youth Partnership, please contact Flora: flora.ward@yuf.org.uk