08 February 2012
A rock guitarist, a keyboard player and a singer from La Motte Street Youth Project have won a nationally recognised award for their artistic achievements.
Robbie Dark (16), Honor Butel (13) and Joe Chadd (17), who are graduates of the Youth Service’s Rock School, each received a Bronze Arts Award yesterday. They are the first young people from Jersey to win one of the national accolades.
The Arts Awards were launched in the UK in 2005 to encourage 11-25 year olds to engage with the arts in depth. It motivates them to expand their interest in different art forms and gives formal recognition of their own creative work.
To win the award, the students had to create a portfolio that showed:
- 40 hours of work on their own performances and projects
- evidence of teaching an artistic skill to others
- research into a different artistic discipline
- research into an inspirational figure from the arts world
The portfolio was assessed by Ivor Richards, the senior youth officer at La Motte Street, who has trained as an Arts Award adviser to deliver the scheme.
“These awards are regarded as the arts world equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme so it is a significant qualification. This was a pilot scheme for Jersey but it has been a great success so we hope to expand it in future.” said Mr Richards.
The Arts Award was introduced to Jersey through the 2010 Council for Culture Conference when Ruth Jones, Regional Coordinator for the South West, was a guest speaker.
Rod McLoughlin, Jersey’s Cultural Development Officer, explained the significance “Young people who take part can explore any art form - including performing arts, visual arts, literature, media and multimedia - so it is very accessible. Also, one of the particularly interesting aspects is that it encourages young people to expand their horizons by attending other events in theatres, arts centres or art galleries.”
gov.je