皇冠体育app

Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? At London鈥檚 Little Fish 皇冠体育appatre, life and art feed each other to deliver positive social impact for the city鈥檚 youth.

皇冠体育app CIC鈥檚 mission is to produce high quality innovative theatre productions and drama experiences for young people in and around London. Through its activities, the company seeks to challenge social injustice and inspire personal and community growth and change.

Little Fish 皇冠体育appatre was born out of a charity called Big Fish 皇冠体育appatre set up by Alex Cooke and Kate Holdom.

But when Kate relocated to Devon, Alex stayed and opened the 鈥榣ittle鈥� sister organisation to service existing contracts, which he runs with colleague Suha Al- Khayyat, as a CIC.

Since then the organisation has reached over 6,000 youth across five London boroughs, delivering a variety of education and community outreach projects in mainstream schools, pupil referral units and other youth at risk groups, through workshops and touring productions. 皇冠体育app Little Fish 皇冠体育appatre tackles issues such as homophobia, drugs, street crime, violent extremism and sexual rights head on.

Little Fish became a CIC in May 2008. 鈥淥riginally, because we were created as a legacy to Big Fish, we got core grant funding for two years to support Little Fish 皇冠体育appatre鈥檚 development,鈥� says Cooke.

Now, however, the CIC model suits the Little Fish 皇冠体育appatre well. 鈥淚t鈥檚 useful because when we started, we weren鈥檛 accessing trust and foundation grants. 皇冠体育app CIC model seemed to be the best legal body for showing that you鈥檙e a not-for-profit, but it鈥檚 not as time-consuming as trying to run a charity. A CIC is definitely easier to run,鈥� says Cooke.

It comes with another benefit, he adds: 鈥淲ith two full-time members of staff and a relatively small turnover, we are still able to apply to grant providers. Not being tied to any one London borough means being able to work independently according to our own methodology, one we trust and believe in.鈥�

Working with young people on the cusp of the issues the theatre addresses, and challenging their value systems, can be a transformative experience for all involved.

鈥淥ne of the greatest projects we鈥檝e done,鈥� says Cooke, 鈥渨as a piece about violent extremism for young people entering university or higher education.

鈥淲e were able to ask: what do you do if someone you know is becoming involved in politically motivated violent acts? How do you handle the situation, when a friend gets involved in criminality?鈥�

Cooke says it was a rewarding challenge to open up an honest discussion about such a difficult and sensitive subject area. 鈥溁使谔逵齛pp resulting piece was very simple and yet, according to those who watched it, very effective.鈥�

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