The NYAT - Industry Mentoring Scheme

Summary:

National Youth Arts Trust is a low cost, low risk and high impact small charity, founded in 2013 in response to funding cuts in the arts industry which widens access to performing arts for the most disadvantaged young people aged 7 to 25 across UK. We are requesting for a funding of £3,560 which will run our mentorship project for 1 year which provides high-quality mentorship and masterclasses to our ex-bursary holders and recent arts graduates, who are socio-economically disadvantaged, to learn from and network with the industry experts to help them create their own career pathways into the industry. LAMDA is our official partner in this project.

What activities we conduct to achieve our aims?

Organising monthly high-quality masterclasses by inviting leading experts from the arts industry. We have partnered with LAMDA for this project which organises free space for us to run our workshops and masterclasses at their campus.

Providing our mentees with the required high-level exposure by taking them to recording studios, theatres, etc for workshops to practice their skills in real-time.

Organising regular 1-on-1 mentoring sessions by connecting each mentee with a mentor for a consistent period to learn various technical and core skills to stand out in the industry in the long run.

Organising socials for our young mentees to connect and network with likeminded others to facilitate peer support and learning.

What have we done so far?

NYAT has ran a 6-month pilot for this project starting from November 2023 till April 2024. We organised 6 monthly masterclasses attended by a total of 45 young people. We also organised 1-on-1 mentorship opportunities for 10 carefully selected young mentees who were paired up with 5 volunteer experts from the industry for 6 months. We currently have a pool of 15 volunteer experts from the industry who are happy to continue to support this project including Jack Farthing, Ellora Torchia, Aicha Kossoko, Emily Stott, etc.