Torbay imagination and ideas festival
‘Imagine This’ is a big lottery funded partnership programme looking at ways to improve lives for children growing up in Torbay. Led by Torbay Community Development Trust, the overall purpose of the partnership is to work together to create solutions that improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people. The Torbay imagination and ideas festival was organised to collect feedback from the young people of Torbay in July 2019.
Torbay is a small unitary authority made up of three coastal towns with a population of 130,000. A seaside destination, the English Rivera has seen better days. Low employee pay is pervasive and health problems are prevalent in communities.
There are approximately 25,000 children and young people under the age of 18 years living in Torbay. Approximately 22% of the local authority’s children are living in poverty and official figures and research show higher than average rates for domestic violence, children in care, family conflict, mental health and homelessness.
Through a collaborate programme of work, the partnership hopes to develop ways for organisations to work together and provide effective solutions to these challenges.
The brief
In July 2019, Torbay Community Development Trust approached Made Open for some help with planning and facilitating a series of co-design workshops with young people.
Claire was contracted by Made Open to produce a short film about the festival, working from planning & pre-production, through to post.
The film required Claire to recruit a small crew, manage the production during the event, run interviews with key volunteers and to approach young people to give their views on camera.
After the event, Claire put together a short film to the specifications of both Made Open & Torbay Community Development Trust.
The event
The imagination and ideas festival held a range of workshops and activities designed to inspire young people about the future, encouraging them to share their ideas to solve challenges. Held at Parkfield Community Centre in Paignton in September 2019, it was free with food, music, talks, workshops and activities for everyone to get involved in.
A number of “challenge” zones around the venue reflected the issues identified in previous research. Made Open created an ideas space where young people and their families could drop in to share their ideas for the future of Torbay. In the room we set up a video diary room, a big ideas board and facilitated two co-design workshops to help young people discuss the issues and develop their ideas.
Outcomes
500+
young people and their families attended the event
120
young people attended the Ideas Jam workshop
5
young people from Torbay volunteered on the day
30+
people contributed to the short film
Behind the scenes
The crew
The event footage was captured by factual-entertainment freelancers James Chatwin (Porth Sound) and Chris Smith (Bull & Wolf Film Co.)
The partners
‘Imagine This’ is a big lottery funded partnership programme looking at ways to improve lives for children growing up in Torbay.
The issues
Approximately 22% of Torbay’s children are living in poverty and official research show above average rates for domestic violence, children in care, family conflict, mental health and homelessness.
The designers
Made Open are service design and technology company who help organisations and partnerships around the world to build bespoke community platforms and to design better services.
