Help Leeds Young Authors go to USA!
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Our Story
Leeds Young Authors (LYA) is a grassroots youth organisation founded in 2003 in Chapeltown, Leeds, UK. LYA promotes active literacy, social, political and cultural awareness by creating spaces to celebrate youth voices, and offers the opportunity for young people to develop their artistic abilities as confident writers and live performers.
In July 2016 we hope to represent Leeds and the UK in the Brave New Voices (BNV) International Poetry & Literature Festival – the largest youth poetry slam competition - this year held in Washington DC. BNV also offers an intensive programme of workshops, seminars and community building activities and provides an invaluable learning experience for the young people, poet coaches, educators and mentors alike.
LYA first took part in BNV in 2004 (the first non-American group invited to do so) and in 2009 our team placed second in the whole poetry Slam competition – an outstanding achievement considering Leeds was then only one of three teams from outside the US.
As LYA is an entirely free organisation, relying on the incredible support of volunteers, we have struggled over the last couple of years because of funding cuts. This has meant it has not been possible for us to send a full team to BNV. Despite these challenges we are determined to continue nurturing the next generation of poets. We have built upon our success at BNV 2009 and the Word Cup UK National Slam Finals in 2010, by winning the 2015 UK National Slam in London, ‘Shot from the Lip’ and members of this team are hoping to continue their success in America.
With your help we are now hoping to raise money towards the travel costs and festival registration for our team to participate in BNV 2016 and to continue the valuable process of cross-cultural international exchange.
Our Impact
Attending Brave New Voices would offer Leeds Young Authors the chance to connect, dialogue and build bridges with young artists, educators, poets, and mentors across radically diverse ethnic, racial, geographic and socio-economic lines. It would allow us to strengthen the service that we offer to young people in our own community and to build upon our own annual festival, ‘Voices of a New Generation’ (the longest running Youth Literature Festival in the UK) which we have offered free to schools and community groups for the last 13 years.
LYA has offered free literature and creative writing workshops to dedicated young people aged 13-19 (together with a group for those aged 11-13) every week for the last 13 years and this huge effort, energy, enthusiasm and generous time given by our small team of volunteers will be galvanized once again through engagement with BNV - a one-of-a-kind event.
For the LYA poets who have previously attended BNV, the festival has been a life-changing experience: a source of huge inspiration; an opening up of possibilities; lasting friendships; dramatic gains in confidence; as well as improved writing, performance and dialogue skills as a result. On returning to the UK the young poets have also been able to transmit their experience back to the community and in turn become ambassadors for the next generation.
The commitment to craft and growth in the writer and person that BNV encourages is an important and invaluable experience for all who participate and helps to reinvigorate the literary continuum and contemporary education through the spoken word: a generation of young people speaking for themselves, in their own voices.
Our Goal
We are aiming to raise a total of £6,000 to get the whole team and some of the amazing mentors over to America. With this campaign we hope to raise the registration fee for the competion before late May. Any extra will go towards our travel costs so the tickets can be booked asap.
BNV has been such an important developmental link for our organisation that in the event of us not reaching our target amount we will still try and send a small representation – this would include the scenario of sending just three of our team members. If even this proves beyond our means (as it did for the first time last year) then we would still send one of our past attendees as a BNV alumni to take part in the highly prestigious Future Corps programme. However it would be an incredible opportunity for these young poets to go to America and represent Leeds and the UK!
The extent of this opportunity can be seen in the 2008 documentary 'We Are Poets' following our team that went out to compete.
We Are Poets - Official Movie Teaser [HD]
Thank you enormously for your support - without people like you LYA would not be able to do what it does!
Leeds Young Authors (LYA) is a grassroots youth organisation founded in 2003 in Chapeltown, Leeds, UK. LYA promotes active literacy, social, political and cultural awareness by creating spaces to celebrate youth voices, and offers the opportunity for young people to develop their artistic abilities as confident writers and live performers.
In July 2016 we hope to represent Leeds and the UK in the Brave New Voices (BNV) International Poetry & Literature Festival – the largest youth poetry slam competition - this year held in Washington DC. BNV also offers an intensive programme of workshops, seminars and community building activities and provides an invaluable learning experience for the young people, poet coaches, educators and mentors alike.
LYA first took part in BNV in 2004 (the first non-American group invited to do so) and in 2009 our team placed second in the whole poetry Slam competition – an outstanding achievement considering Leeds was then only one of three teams from outside the US.
As LYA is an entirely free organisation, relying on the incredible support of volunteers, we have struggled over the last couple of years because of funding cuts. This has meant it has not been possible for us to send a full team to BNV. Despite these challenges we are determined to continue nurturing the next generation of poets. We have built upon our success at BNV 2009 and the Word Cup UK National Slam Finals in 2010, by winning the 2015 UK National Slam in London, ‘Shot from the Lip’ and members of this team are hoping to continue their success in America.
With your help we are now hoping to raise money towards the travel costs and festival registration for our team to participate in BNV 2016 and to continue the valuable process of cross-cultural international exchange.
Our Impact
Attending Brave New Voices would offer Leeds Young Authors the chance to connect, dialogue and build bridges with young artists, educators, poets, and mentors across radically diverse ethnic, racial, geographic and socio-economic lines. It would allow us to strengthen the service that we offer to young people in our own community and to build upon our own annual festival, ‘Voices of a New Generation’ (the longest running Youth Literature Festival in the UK) which we have offered free to schools and community groups for the last 13 years.
LYA has offered free literature and creative writing workshops to dedicated young people aged 13-19 (together with a group for those aged 11-13) every week for the last 13 years and this huge effort, energy, enthusiasm and generous time given by our small team of volunteers will be galvanized once again through engagement with BNV - a one-of-a-kind event.
For the LYA poets who have previously attended BNV, the festival has been a life-changing experience: a source of huge inspiration; an opening up of possibilities; lasting friendships; dramatic gains in confidence; as well as improved writing, performance and dialogue skills as a result. On returning to the UK the young poets have also been able to transmit their experience back to the community and in turn become ambassadors for the next generation.
The commitment to craft and growth in the writer and person that BNV encourages is an important and invaluable experience for all who participate and helps to reinvigorate the literary continuum and contemporary education through the spoken word: a generation of young people speaking for themselves, in their own voices.
Our Goal
We are aiming to raise a total of £6,000 to get the whole team and some of the amazing mentors over to America. With this campaign we hope to raise the registration fee for the competion before late May. Any extra will go towards our travel costs so the tickets can be booked asap.
BNV has been such an important developmental link for our organisation that in the event of us not reaching our target amount we will still try and send a small representation – this would include the scenario of sending just three of our team members. If even this proves beyond our means (as it did for the first time last year) then we would still send one of our past attendees as a BNV alumni to take part in the highly prestigious Future Corps programme. However it would be an incredible opportunity for these young poets to go to America and represent Leeds and the UK!
The extent of this opportunity can be seen in the 2008 documentary 'We Are Poets' following our team that went out to compete.
We Are Poets - Official Movie Teaser [HD]
Thank you enormously for your support - without people like you LYA would not be able to do what it does!
Organizer
Aoife O'Connor
Organizer
