Curriculum is Life is a small charity co-creating life skills resources in the global creative commons together with young people. We are inviting anyone under 25 years old to take part in a creative arts project that…
- Gives young people a platform to express their hopes, dreams, and challenges through the creative arts
- Showcases the talent and perspectives of youth from your community on a global stage and provides the opportunity to be part of an international youth voice initiative
- Generates themes and artistic expression that will be used to influence policy makers
- Contributes to an innovative 3D art exhibition featuring artworks representing 1000s of young people
- Sees the works you create feature on a shared platform featuring artistic expression from around the world
Who We Are
We are an innovative life-skills learning resource creator that forms intergenerational groups to create resources that reflect and respond to the needs of young people. Our process enables young people and adults to convene in small international groups to co-create free to access lessons. What results are lessons and learning journeys that are rich, diverse and reflect the life skills young people want to learn and how they want that learning to be formed.
We operate in the creative commons and all resources are available to be adapted and developed on a global-local basis. Whilst we recognise the value of online resources, we promote ‘real world’ activity-based learning that mainly takes place off-screen.
Over time we are developing high quality resources reflecting our core curriculum content to develop the life skills described in our life skills glossary.
How the Voices of Tomorrow Project started
Voices of Tomorrow was initiated by our international youth core circle after one of them, Tajala from Afghanistan, shared one her paintings online, sparking a wave of artistic expression from other young people around the world. Motivated by a strong commitment to children’s rights and creative expression, the Youth Core Circle began an initiative in 2023 to collect and celebrate youth artworks and make their voices heard about the future. The artworks, such as Tajala’s initial one below, were showcased on our social media during the period surrounding World Children’s Day in November 2023.
The idea spread and we attracted a little funding so that we could make the Voices of Tomorrow project a reality and initiate a partnership with The 4th Dimension and create a 3D online gallery space like this one, that will exhibit work now, and in future iterations of the project, as the community builds.
Listening to and promoting Youth Voice
40% of the world’s population is under 25, with many living in marginalised, disadvantaged and conflict-stricken areas, but their voices are often unheard. Voices of Tomorrow is a youth-led creative initiative, providing a platform for young people everywhere to share their work with the world to inspire change and inform decision-makers.
- Our project mission for young people to be able to:
- Use their creativity to influence leaders and drive positive change
- Showcase their art online for the world to see
- Grow and thrive by connecting with others
For us, a great example of the power of collective artistic expression was the Turn it Around project by Arizona State University. Their artworks have been used during UN meetings and placed in the hands of decision makers including Antonio Guterres, we will capture themes emerging from the collective expression of young people and offer & use images to influence decision makers in any forum where we believe youth voice can make a difference – there are many!
Get Involved
We believe there is great potential for the home education community to be a part of our long-term mission to enable young people to participate in the creation of learning resources that work for them. We see the Voice of Tomorrow creative futures project as a great opportunity to work together.
It is very easy to create and submit artistic expressions of all kinds both individually and / or in groups and we have created a short activity inspired by a UNESCO Future Literacy lesson that stimulates thoughts and feelings about the future, guides the start of the creative process and makes it easy to upload an image of your work.
Importantly, we welcome all types and ‘level’ of art – it is all about expression and not about masterpieces! All work will be displayed on a web page and selected pieces representing emergent themes will be displayed in the 3D gallery for all to see.
So! Here is our invitation for you to get involved as part of your learning during October/November 2024. Click through to Voices of Tomorrow: Youth Creative Futures Project, get registered, and download the one-hour workshop to help the young people in your life to creatively express their vision of the future and submit their artworks.
Follow us on social media to see many of the artworks as they are submitted from all over the world: Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Peter Williams
CEO Curriculum for Life