BREAK COMMS

A massive thanks to the BREAK team that have been the heart of Life Skills, which we’ve been working away on over the last few months, creating genuinely engaging and important content for young people making big decisions. What we’ve created is down to these guys right here, along with Swarzy who wasn’t in the pic and Ryan who had already departed to start the edit! The 5 videos of long-form content, the 17 pieces of bitesize content, the 100k plus plays, the 6% + engagement figures, the schools across the country that are engaging for their year 10 and 11 students… It’s all down to these people: * Zwelake (Zweli) Chibumba - curating and programming talent to deliver the knowledge that we needed, plus schools outreach that left no stone unturned! * Giovanni Edwards - the shots, the lights, the vibes and the heart * Ryan Adagio - the late night edits and pre-dawn delivery, every time: “Yeah that’s cool, mate, we can do that” * Brian “Briz” Fofana - securing exceptional content from people that nobody else can and dropping hot reels for days * Lee Jerome Jardine-Johnson - setting up the space, keeping everything together and managing Gio’s demands * Richie Brave - for always bringing it back to the young people “If I’m, like, 15, 16…” * Swarzy Shire - the relentless energy and enthusiasm to unpack the gems of knowledge our guests had to share It’s been the biggest vibe with the best people. Plus our amazing guests who were so open and honest about their journeys.

How do you make credit scores, PAYE, moving out, supplements and medical advice sound interesting to 15-17 year olds? We dropped the cheat codes to adulting when we partnered with NCS to co-deliver Life Skills, a YouTube and social media series driven by insights developed with young people from across England. Across two YouTube playlists, our hosts Richie Brave (BBC Radio 1Xtra) and Swarzy Shire (BBC Radio 1Xtra) spoke to our special guests below for all the tips: - Siobhan Wilson (footballer - Birmingham City, Jamaica Women’s International, PT +1million on TikTok) - Seb Carmichael-Brown (co-founder Hashtag Utd and Next Level talent agency) - Iona Bain (BBC presenter, author & money management expert) - Dr Emeka (TikTok star and NHS Doctor) - Poku Banks (young finance expert & content creator) Huge thanks to the NCS Digital Experiences Team for their invaluable help through the process and the BREAK COMMS team: Giovanni Edwards, Ryan Adagio, Lee Jerome-Jardine, Zwelake (Zweli) Chibumba, Brian “Briz” Fofana, and Chris Chasseuad. Watch & share now: https://lnkd.in/erNZVsYh

We recently developed a digital series for NCS which saw our hosts BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Richie Brave and Swarzy Shire sit down with experts and influencers to help 15-17 year olds across the country. The aim? Help them build confidence and resilience as they make some pretty big decisions about their next steps in life. Amongst many others, we invited Birmingham City and Jamaica International women’s football player, PT and content creator with 1 million+ TikTok followers Shiv Wilson on to talk about alternative routes to success and how her difference was the superpower that enabled her to carve out a unique career. With all content created with insights from what young people across England told us they wanted to hear about, we’re super happy that combined plays of campaign content are at just under 2 million! We couldn’t have got there without the team: Giovanni Edwards, Ryan Adagio, Zwelake (Zweli) Chibumba, Brian “Briz” Fofana, Chris Chasseaud and Lee Jerome Jardine-Johnson.

Throwback to when we set up a youth-led creative studio for The Serpentine Gallery and got a private tour of the Kaws exhibition by none other than the legend himself! The Serpentine were keen to reposition themselves as a space for Gen Z. We recruited and mentored a group of young creatives to try and break down barriers into the art world, designing and delivering a 10-week creative training programme. Outputs included artistic responses to James Barnor and Herve Telemaque exhibitions, content creation, an event at The Pavilion + 2 exhibitions from the collective at Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross. In partnership with POCC.

Art and culture doesn’t look or feel one way, it isn’t for a specific audience discussed only in certain words - though it often feels like it is! Last year, for the second year in a row, we were lucky enough to work with this team of incredible culture creators to curate, programme and deliver River Stage. This project has seen The National Theatre collaborate with Hackney Empire and their HE Futures Young Producers to ensure that London’s young people own spaces like The National Theatre, the South Bank and London’s wider cultural spaces to make them meaningful to them and their peers. We worked with the Young Producers to curate, programme and deliver last year’s River Stage - a 3 day arts and culture festival on the South Bank - and in the words of the some of the young producers, it was LIT!

In September ’22 we went to Nairobi to deliver a 4-day programme of capacitation workshops with creative hubs from across Africa, providing training focused on climate-related policy education, community participation and an arts & media up-skilling programme - the hubs went on to exhibit their creative responses to climate change at COP27. It was hectic, special, unforgettable, intense, but most of all - a huge learning curve! We were lucky enough to be able to head to Mombasa afterwards to catch our breath and whilst there we gave our first major international delivery some thought. Top learnings: - Always have a Plan B if you’re working somewhere you’ve never worked before. Do you have a local fixer on the ground - like if your venue (nearly) falls through at the last minute… - If you’re working with vulnerable communities, make agreements that ensure those communities are remunerated in the way THEY say is most valuable. - There are potential collaborators EVERYWHERE. Seek out those with shared values & make that international project happen. - Are there any local issues that might affect what you’re doing? Elections? Power supply? Accessibility? - Don’t rely on social media to communicate: get emails and phone numbers that work 24/7. - One for wherever you’re delivering: big isn’t always better. Global organisations are great, but weigh up if they’ll give you the insight you really need for the area you're in. If you’re working on grassroots issues, engage and work with grassroots organisations that understand the issues. https://lnkd.in/esKA2BaF

#tbt to September 2022, Nairobi. We worked with Crtve Development to programme & deliver a 4-day programme of capacitation workshops with creative hubs from across Africa - Daai Deng, Perform Arts, The Assembly, Footprints of David, and Tamba Africa - all pictured here. The workshops provided networking opportunities focusing on climate-related policy education, community building, and knowledge sharing, & gave the creative hubs the opportunity to speak truth to power & share their own immediate experiences of the impact of climate change on them & their communities. Each hub was given a grant to produce their own creative responses to climate justice, some of which were platformed at COP27. Here's the gang on our final night in Nairobi.

It’s #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and we’re revisiting ‘Talk About It’ - a youth-led approach devised by BREAK COMMS to tackle young people’s mental health from the London Borough of Barnet. We carried out research, speaking to a co-creation group of local 13-21 year olds to ensure everything from ideation to creation and finally production was powered by the realities of young people. Our short-film - written, produced and performed by local young people - helped destigmatise the topic of mental health, presenting it as a spectrum, whether you’re feeling happy, sad or somewhere in between, we are all somewhere on that spectrum. There was also a supporting campaign of social media content, OOH ads and sign posting, plus a trailer that ran in Barnet’s Vue Cinema, all exploring how young people can boost their own mental health, and signposting them to help and support available in the borough including BICS and KOOTH. Thanks to our co-creation group, actors, film crew, locations and of course, presenter Richie Driss, for helping us bring the ideas of the young people to life.

Do you struggle to reach young, diverse audiences? Serpentine Galleries came to us with the same problem. The perception of the art world from the outside - and in! - is that it’s very white and middle class, leaving young Londoners feeling locked out of spaces that they don’t feel reflected in. This is wild - art and these spaces are meant for everybody; there is no art if there is no reaction and it's the variety of reactions that make art so special. We created Serpentine Studios, recruiting a youth collective and supporting them with a 12-week creative learning programme hosted at the gallery, giving them unique access to talent, artists, exhibitions and opportunities to flex their artistic disciplines with a series of creative briefs set by us. This was a collaboration with POCC. 19 young creatives formed the collective, spanning painters, photographers, art directors, audio artists, poets, AR, VR and more. This is a throwback to ‘For Ever Young,’ their event at Serpentine Pavilion which was an evening of workshops, exhibitions, live art and performance, with a very special guest - James Barnor.