BeyondBühne

BeyondBühne is a place where all young people can develop artistically. You are taken seriously here. You can come as you are. Run free! Since our founding in 2003, we’ve been a stage for the curious. We developed rapidly: The starting 60 members soon turned to several hundred children and youths that create their own personal art through means of theatre, dance and film. Soon we left the Austrian borders behind us: Our network covers over 70 youth theatres in more than 30 countries. Our members regularly travel afar, to work on art projects with others, and we invite youth groups to stay with us. In 2017, our long-standing engagement was rewarded with the Kulturpreis des Landes NÖ. Now, we have 6 people employed, around 20 more to support us in their free time and we reach around 400 children and teenagers each year with our courses. The creative work in our groups is led by academically trained art pedagoges. Many voluntary workers lend their hand in different fields behind the stage: make-up, costumes, marketing, catering and many more. In addition, we work together with a professional light and sound team. All of them are in it with their whole hearts: Passionately curious! BeyondBühne recognised the principles of cultural education as the best way to holistically nurture young people. Our focus lies in the fields of theatre, dance and film, that oftentimes meld together in practice. Through the means of the performing arts, our members discover both their interests and potential. Within a yearly course, the plays are developed in small groups and in the end performed on stage. The children and youths are encouraged to come up with themes that are important to them or they interpret predetermined ideas themselves. Aesthetically pleasing forms of expression are found through playful improvisation and workshop-like experimentation, leading to an artistic outcome that’s selfmade and unique. Another important aspect of our work lies in the mediation of autonomy, as the young people take initiative in their creative work and their experimentation. The group situation mobilises the ability to be creative and it often leads to innovative solutions. The help and feedback of our pedagoges makes our members feel safe and raises their appetite for risk in their art. The youngsters can show their potential in this safe environment and learn to acknowledge their boundaries. The children and youths learn to creatively utilise insecurities and complexities, to work cooperatively in heterogeneous groups as well as experience their self-efficacy. It is those abilities that help them to stand out and persist in a time where knowledge is easily accessible online.

FOCO

FOCO is an association founded by people coming from different fields that aims at moving the non-formal education field forward through innovative projects and initiatives. The main aims of the organisation are:

⬡ To cooperate with other organisations in Spain and Europe to promote social inclusion, creativity, arts, culture, active citizenship, respect towards diversity and other civic values.

⬡ To provide training opportunities for competence development, civic engagement, promotion of social values and others.

⬡ To promote activities and projects that follow the principles of quality, relevance, usefulness and dynamism.

In order to achieve these goals, FOCO promotes different activities and projects using non-formal methodologies with a broad range of target groups, including participants with fewer opportunities. FOCO provides training opportunities tailored to the needs of the target group, and these activities are implemented both for trainers, facilitator, educators or youth workers (training the trainers) as well as directly with the beneficiaries. Additionally, FOCO supports other organisations that wish to upscale their projects l by providing consulting and training services. In that sense, FOCO is already working at an international level by accompanying other grassroots organisations to carry out their projects, bringing the experience of the members of FOCO with regards to project coordination, non-formal training and facilitation. Currently there are 4 members working for the organisation and around 5 volunteers as well as different people willing to contribute from time to time. We try to involve the youth of our region as much as possible in order to improve their personal and professional circumstances, as well as the internationalization of our semi-rural region.

Crooked House

Crooked House is a theatre-making organisation established in 1993 in Newbridgein County Kildare, Ireland by Peter Hussey. We make theatre with, for and by young people from the ages of 11 to 24. Participation in all our activities is free and open to anyone. Our work is inspired by tolerance, equality, social justice, compassion, and empathy. We aim to create theatre that is ambitious, challenging, aesthetically engaging, and relevant to our audiences. Our activities include weekly drama workshops, rehearsals and performances of plays; devising and making new performances; actor-training; research into theatre and young people; and international youth theatre projects. We run a small space in Newbridge where we work with over 100 young people weekly. We also travel to schools and youth projects in County Kildare every week to run free theatre programmes with young people. Our youth theatre is the largest in Ireland and the oldest in Kildare. We have been very successful in placing young people who want to be actors into third level actor training courses in the UK and Ireland. We select the top 5 programmes in the world (mostly in London) and work with young people who do not have many opportunities to get them a place. We have collaborated with European theatres since 2002 to develop educational and performance projects with groups of multicultural young people. We train young drama facilitators and leaders to work with youth groups on themes of social justice, equality, and human rights, wellbeing, and democratic processes. These themes are expressed through theatre workshops, devised performances, and plays. This work aims to promote positive mental health; increase citizenship abilities; promote equality and develop critical thinking. We bring young people from all of the socioeconomic classes and backgrounds together in one place. Crooked House is centred on the needs of the young people it serves. Many of our participants are marginalized young people and early school-leavers. We also aim to integrate young people with special needs into mainstream workshops. There is a Members’ Committee which meets monthly to reflect on and advise about the work of the organisation. Crooked House is a registered charity with a board of trustees. We operate comprehensive. Child Protection policies, have Garda Clearance for all our volunteers, and have a Welfare Officer in place to guide the company’s work with the young people. It is funded by project-specific funding from the European Union (for European Solidarity Corps volunteering projects), The Arts Council (for theatre-making with young ensembles), and Kildare County Council (annual funding to support workshop delivery). The HSE fund drama based mental health initiatives, and Kildare Wicklow ETB fund our leadership training work.