Background to the project

Eden Court delivers a range of creative arts activities for young people across the Highlands through its Cashback funding. Eden Court works in partnership with youth organisations to enable them to engage with young people from across the vast Highland area.

This project was delivered in partnership with Outfit Moray, an award winning outdoor education charity based in Lossiemouth. Outfit Moray works with schools, youth agencies and youth groups (and works predominantly with vulnerable and disadvantaged young people) to develop the potential of young people through outdoor education.

Purpose of the project

The project aimed to provide opportunities for young people, who otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity, to participate in a unique programme of exciting outdoor activities and film –making.

Access and participation:

• provide opportunities to young people who wouldn’t otherwise get the opportunity to participate;
• develop confidence and team work skills through outdoor education;
• develop new skills (both in outdoor skills plus filmmaking).

Project delivery

Outfit Moray worked in partnership with two Youth Cafes; one in Elgin and one in Cullen. The Youth Café’s identified young people who will benefit from the opportunity, and provided transport to the activities (as many of the young people in more remote areas are excluded from participation through the distance/cost and inaccessibility by public transport).

Young people spent two days carrying out exciting outdoor activities – kayaking, surfing, abseiling, climbing with experienced instructors from Outfit Moray. They filmed their activities using helmet-mounted cameras.

The final day of the course involved film-making – each young person learned how to make a film and music track to their film. This element of the programme was delivered by Eden Court’s digital media and music production staff.

The final element of the programme was a showcase event at Eden Court. The young people’s films were shown at a special screening at Eden Court cinema, to which family and friends were invited.

Outcomes for young people

The programme aimed to engage young people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to participate in arts activity.

Most of the young people (who had been engaged in the programme through their local youth cafés) commented that they had done some outdoor activities in the past, but that the combination of outdoor activities and film-making had attracted them. Most had no previous experience of film-making.

Young people reported that they had enjoyed the programme, and that they had learned new skills and built their confidence.

Comments from parents highlight also highlight the impact on building the confidence of young people.

“Huge thanks for the amazing opportunity for X to work with Eden court and yourselves she absolutely just loved it, all this outdoor stuff has given her such a confidence boost as she was such a shy wee girl last year, it’s great to see her feel comfortable with others and socialise more easily now.”

A youth worker from Cullen Youth Café reported that one young person who had taken part in the programme had very low self-esteem. However, through the programme, he found that he really excelled at the film-making element, and this had boosted his confidence and inspired him to get involved in another film-making project.

Making a film of their achievements had obviously added to participants pride and self-esteem:

“I’ve done outdoors stuff before, but I hadn’t done filming – to be able to film what you are doing was pretty cool. When people ask what I’ve done over the summer, I can show them.”

One boy had shared the film with friends on twitter.

The showcase is an important element of many of the Creative projects. The young people have the opportunity to ‘showcase’ their work and report a sense of achievement and pride in so doing.

One young person commented

“I’ve been to Eden Court before, but never to see my own film. I’m quite nervous about that.”

For the staff at Outfit Moray

“The screening of the films at Eden Court was really successful – it really gave young people an opportunity to reflect on their achievements, but also to share their success with their parents/carers.”

“It’s also a great opportunity to introduce the young people to Eden Court which is a great venue – but many of the kids had never been, so it’s opening their eyes to different opportunities and expanding their comfort zones too.”

Cashback investment: Eden Court £50,000 (this is only one of the many projects delivered by Eden Court)