This year’s campaign theme asks a simple but vital question: “What do you stand for?”. CANVAS Derby have been proudly participating in this movement, amplifying youth voices and championing the experiences, ideas and leadership of young people across the city. #iWillWeek has been shaped by Ambassadors and the things they are seeing, leading and experiencing. It is a call to every young person – and every organisation that backs young people – to ask #WhatDoYouStandFor.
CANVAS is a city-wide initiative that brings art directly to young people in their communities while also showcasing their creativity in the heart of the city. This year’s programme took place aligning CANVAS Creative Careers Month. Throughout November, CANVAS connected young people aged 11–25 with creative professionals and arts organisations across Derby City through a series of free, hands-on workshops and a Creative Careers Panel. These sessions offered insights, practical skills, and inspiring conversations with local industry professionals who shared their career journeys and lived experiences.
What We Did During #iWill Week
Throughout the week, CANVAS shared powerful stories from young people across Derby, spotlighting their creativity, perspectives and lived experiences through a series of artistic responses and activities. Future Creative Aaron Vespa explored themes of justice through a piece of dance work, while Engagement and Communication Officer, Cai led a session on joy and resistance at Bramblebrook Hub, where young people created personal shields as part of the discussion. Kieran contributed a poem reflecting on community, and the Future Creatives collectively explored what CANVAS means to them, creating #WhatDoYouStandFor responses around the themes of Truth, Dignity, Justice, Community and Joy. These themes were then woven into the CANVAS Creative Careers Week Panel, ensuring their voices shaped the conversation.
The week also enhanced conversations in a new staff pledge, co-created with young people, strengthening our commitment to listening to youth voices
We remain committed to empowering young people through digital and community-led work, internal organisational development and consistent values-based practice. As part of #iWillWeek, CANVAS reflected on how we support youth voice, representation and access across the whole organisation. Key areas of reflection included:
- Ensuring clarity and consistency across the organisation’s work with young people
- Reviewing existing policies, including green policies and values statements
- Exploring how all staff – including those not outwardly working with young people – can meaningfully support youth empowerment
- Creating a collective pledge representing staff across all departments
- Strengthening pathways for young people to influence decision-making through safe spaces, steering groups and opportunities
- Challenging stereotypes and ensuring young people are listened to, taken seriously and not misunderstood
Derby Theatre and CANVAS already support young people through:
- Youth Theatre Ambassadors
- Young people performing in Derby Theatre shows
- Youth Theatre programmes
- CANVAS and Plus One
- Acts of Kindness tickets
- Work experience opportunities
- Studio programming shaped by young people
Pledges to Amplify Youth Voice
Our organisational pledges included:
- Shouting more about the work young people do and where they are leading
- Ensuring youth voices are represented in the shows we commission and programme
- Inviting young people into Senior Management Team and/or Board meetings
- Making our working models more adaptive and responsive to young people’s needs
- Being transparent about why ideas can or cannot be taken forward
- Meeting young people in their own spaces
- Being open, available and willing to talk, listen and share experiences across every department.
- Through creative expression, honest conversations and shared action, CANVAS proudly stood alongside young people and amplified what they stand for.
Young creatives who have been a part of the CANVAS Project have said: “CANVAS is an amazing opportunity for young people and has positively impacted my life in many ways. It has allowed me to meet young people with the same interests as me from all walks of life. It has allowed me to grow in confidence and experience things I would have never been able to completely for free.”
“A place where young people get together to help shape the future of the creative industry by talking about our ideas.”
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/“This is the importance of arts within truth. Over many years in society you’ll find that when people – especially those in power – try to shut things down, they will target the arts. Art is a language that guides us towards a sort of truth because it’s all about media literacy and what we see online when it comes to propaganda and all that stuff. It’s so important to push the arts through these means because it gives us the power to have our own opinions and rights, and it’s a very powerful pathway not just to express but to be heard.”TRUTH - Aaron Pullen
/“So, misconceptions… for example, coming from a Muslim perspective: if all you ever see is actors playing terrorists, you're going to think of Muslims as terrorists. But if you meet a Muslim in person, your perspective changes. Art is political because it helps change people’s minds. I feel like people should understand that a label doesn’t define you. I’m just a normal person living my life. I might joke that I’m a Muslim, dyslexic woman, but that doesn’t define me.”TRUTH - Sarah Younis
/“It’s really difficult to keep your dignity as a young trans person. It’s so odd, the things people think they’re entitled to say just because you are different from them. I believe you should treat every person you meet with respect, no exceptions. You wouldn’t go up to a random child in the street and ask about their genitalia, so how is it okay to ask a trans child? Uneducated people can be so invasive – just because I’m the only trans person you’ve ever met doesn’t mean I’m the Wikipedia of trans experiences. Dignity and truth go hand in hand. Everyone deserves to live their true selves with dignity.”DIGNITY - Jordan Godfrey
/“So I’ve grown up my whole life knowing I was colourblind. From the moment I can remember, I’ve been colourblind. At first it was a big thing, and I used to tell everyone, but it quickly became something people would bully me about. Slowly but surely, I stopped telling people. Now I’ve reached high school and even college, I can openly talk about it again because I’m finally in a place where I feel comfortable doing so. That speaks to truth as well, because there’s so much misinformation about what roles and jobs you can and can’t do.”DIGNITY - Ace Horsewell
/“I stand for protecting trans kids and people under the transgender umbrella. I stand by that because I have lots of friends who are under the transgender umbrella, and I’ve witnessed them go through a lot of discrimination and hatred. I’ve always wanted to create a safe space in the community, and luckily CANVAS is that safe space.”JUSTICE - Rue Sheehan
/"I think it's important that every young person gathers together, and it's something that we need more in today's society. We need to help young people, and particularly in the arts, give them the opportunity to express themselves."COMMUNITY - Drew Green
/“Just by being nice to each other, it really humanises everyone around you when everything feels quite polarising right now. It’s also just really nice to be kind and to know that you’ve made someone’s day; that’s a really good feeling. I also think joy is an active resistance – finding ways to use space for good moments, especially when everything feels really bad. It’s about having the opportunity to grow, explore, and learn who you are.”JOY - Bethan Wakefield
/“I think everyone deserves to be happy and to be themselves. I want to put a smile on at least one person’s day, because there’s a good chance it will carry on, and everyone will end up putting a smile on someone else’s day.”JOY - Kieran Betteridge
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