Instructables

Check out this great endless resource for workshop and DIY ideas: 

http://www.instructables.com/

Practice.ie

Practice.ie is an on-line collaborative research space reporting on artists' practice with children and young people currently in development by Kids' Own, in partnership with Visual Artists Ireland. The aim of this work is to validate artists practice working with children/young people, To share approaches and practice and to enhance artists practice working with children/young people.

The Hammer Project

The Hammer Project



Hammer Youth Resource Centre
Agnes Street
Belfast BT13 1SH
Tel: 028 90249693

They offer a wide variety of facilities for local residents, including a main building, pavilion and football pitch. The centre caters for a range of ages and activities and offers courses in a number of areas, including computer and job skills.

This Extern children’s project works with 15 and 16-year-olds who have been excluded from formal education. It offers group work, formal qualifications and recreational activities.

They are one of four Digital Community project centres in Belfast. The project provides opportunities for computer training and community development. The group have a choose to run an art or music workshops. This year they choose art. I am facilitating this workshops with the aim to construct a wall piece. This will be located outside the community centre.

Sustainable Design Innovation Course

IT Carlow - Certificate in Sustainable Design Innovation

IT Carlow and the Design Ireland Skillnet has developed a Certificate (Level 9) in Sustainable Design Innovation | More detail: online | PDF Starting Date: Mid October 2008 (Subject to validation) Primarily this course aims to up skill practicing design professionals in the area of Sustainable Design Practice (SDP). Likely students on this programme would typically be designers, design managers, marketing managers and other business managers with responsibility for new product development (NPD), company strategy and design. Those interested in developing capacity in sustainable design and innovation as a business opportunity would also benefit from this programme. Programme fee: €900. The cost through the Design Ireland Skillnet Membership programme is €450 per person, a subsidy of 50%. See www.designireland.ie for details. Non-membership rate is €900 per person. Duration: 5 weeks-proposed for Saturdays 10 am - 1pm | 10 x 3 hour workshop/lectures/mentoring sessions and independent applied research project (with remote mentoring)

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 September 2008 )

Reflection from Summer

During the Summer I have: 

• Delivered play hut back to Cliftonville to Steven and Dan, 
  
• Documented changes to it
  

Originally I'd planned to continue with a week long workshop in Cliftonville but decided on a three-week summer scheme project instead as I wanted to explore differences between areas in Belfast. In BCC I've delivered art workshops, being employed as a Art CO-Ordinator for the summer scheme. There are a few questions I wish to consider:

• How has this position reflected in my practice and enhanced my research?

My observational experience from BCC has been the differences in the children. How available facilities influence a child development and imagination. How being close to nature even in a city is more important than man made environments.

• What was my creative input into the summer scheme? 

The summer scheme was completely left to me to design and plan except for the request to create banners for the fun day and exhibit the children's work in an indoor space provided. I was concerned with the 4-6 group as I hadn't worked with such a young age before.My creative input was in the planning of the workshops and in my decision making to produce video and audio spinoffs from the project. 

• What differenced are there between BCC and CCC - differences in my position, process and in developing relationships? 

I had a different position here in BCC than in CCC as with CCC it was a longer project where relationships could be established and an environment was created where I gained a greater insight into the groups needs. For the summer scheme it was a rapid turn over of children. Workshops ran for an hour each, managing groups of an adverage of 15. Also there was several volunteers supervising workshops. these volunteers had valuable skills that I only got to learn about as the workshops passed, for example bow and arrow making skills. The quick passed workshops were a lot less personal and the focus was on group creativity rather than individual. 

• What are the outcomes from short/long term projects? 

Apart from above, outcomes in a long term project can be more advance, sustainable, reflective and greater in standards of quality, in comparison to short turned over workshops. Having said that the large groups are great to work with for generating ideas and creating discussion. 

• Has my role changed as  a creative facilitator?

My role as a facilitator has improved with regards to planning, designing, providing materials and facilities. I've gained valuable knowledge in these areas. As a creative facilitator also I think because I'm adapting to a larger range, provoking news ways of creating and capturing a creative process and advancing in engaging groups 

• Is my research with BCC and CCC bringing me closer to setting up a play space? 

Yes it has. Learning what's important these children, what facilities are available, their closeness with nature, the effects of living in a Interface environment. All of which feeds into my research about children's sense of adventure or loss of in Northern Ireland, feeling safe in 'their' environments and what play spaces would benefit these children if any.

• What have I learnt from the hut making workshops in other areas? 

When the children in BCC were asked 'Have you ever made huts before? Where was it? What did you do in them?' nearly everyone had a story to tell from making huts with their bed sheets, to using the clothes line outside to being on the beach or in a forest. These children offered more. Was this because of their age? Was it because there's more challenging play environments available to them in their daily lives? 

Upcoming Projects:

YEHA
Work on an outreach project up in Ardoyne - young people from the YEHA Project to design a room for their drop in centre. It involves creating soft furnishings - cushions, etc painting the room. Project aims really to give young people a sense of ownership of the room so they can hang out and have fun.
Group aged between 11-14.
Project Duration - 4 sessions over two weeks.

Venue is Ardoyne Community Healthcare Centre, Flax Centre, Ardoyne Avenue, Belfast BT14.

BCDA (Ballynafeigh Community Development Association)

Tree Swing for Ormeau Park.
Groups: Journey (Women's Group), Youth (Group mixed between 11-14) and Elderly Group
Project Duration - May until August 2009.
Workshop Venue - Ballynafeigh Community House, Ormeau Road.

Tree Swing for Ormeau Park

Project Proposal

I propose for a tree swing to be installed in Ormeau Park on behalf of Ballynafeigh Community and be made accessible at all publics. I have chosen three specific sites, one of which to be decided on.

The tree swing will not situated within a playground, which is a defined environment for children and by doing that it acts as an invitation to different generations and creates a catalyst for storytelling.

A cross section will be targeted and invited to participate. They are Journeys women’s group, a youth group (aged between 11-14 and mixed) and elders at the local nursing home. 10-15 people will be accepted in the project. This mixed consultative group is formed to develop community cohesion by having them negotiating throughout the process and building the individual and collective sense of ownership.

Two creative workshops will be facilitated in order to access the community’s desires and requirements of the tree swing; the form of which will be negotiated. My goal for this project is to stimulate childhood experiences and to provide a trans-generational engagement.

The site will be prepared appropriately and all safety measure will be put in place with maintenance and inspection being high on my agenda. The budget included presentations, workshops, design and production costs, artist fees, transport, installation, maintenance, inspection, advertisement and publicity including a publication of a 16-page flipbook.

Cliftonville Revisited

Images from the revisited hut at Cliftonville. The hut is in bad shape. Steven and Dan both made adjustments to it after delivery in June. Since then the leg of the bent is broken, the door is bent out slightly. But most worrying is the non-usage of the hut.
How has this happened? If they have a fall out with each other, does it get abonded? Should the management of the Cliftonville Community Centre been involved?

Since the summer other visible projects have been interface walls and decoration of the centre.