As part of our work, we offer transformative learning experiences to young people aged 18-25 in partnership with local organisations. Below is an example of some of the projects we have worked on.
We have closely collaborated with Cork Migrant Centre’s youth group, Sauti Youth, to run numerous creative workshops and events. Sauti are a youth-led movement empowering young people to use their creativity through music, poetry, creative writing, and visual arts to combat social injustice, collaborate, express themselves, and drive change.
There are over forty participants in the Sauti youth group, most from migrant backgrounds living in rural Direct Provision centres, who meet each Saturday in Cork City. This work is increasingly important as growing far-right sentiment is resulting in discrimination and violence throughout Ireland and online and promoting social exclusion and fear among young people of different racial backgrounds. Our workshops give the young people the opportunity to delve deeper into the topic of racism, its root causes and connections to global systemic and structural imbalance, developing their creative capacities while creating awareness-raising visual artwork.
Together we worked on an awareness-raising public mural at Cork City Football stadium, in collaboration with Cork City Council’s City of Welcomes initiative. We brought the group through the mural-making process, from concept to design, stencil making and painting. This culminated in a launch event and friendly soccer tournament attended by the Lord Mayor of Cork and representatives from the City Council and Cork Migrant Centre, as well as young visiting Malawian football players represented by Ascent Soccer and the Sudanese Association of Cork.
We have also worked closely with Cork Migrant Centre’s Youth Initiative Against Racism since 2022 and are involved with the planning and delivering of their annual youth-led summit. This is held with the support of the inter-agency Children and Young People Service Committee sub-group, in order to share young people's voices through music, visual art and conversation and draw from their lived experiences to identify gaps and opportunities in anti-racism, holding stakeholders and policymakers to account in action.
As well as this, we hosted collaborative events supported by different organisations which included Sauti and other young people and organisations and aligned with the objectives of the summit – to raise awareness of the Anti-Racism movement, demand action, and strengthen capacities and community. These included; World Stage - spoken word poetry and dance workshops and public performance with Kelvin Akpaloo and YMCA Cork; Riot Against Racism at Cork City Hall, a concert with over twenty local acts and two-hundred attendees sharing their voices for empowerment and change, in collaboration with Cork City Council, CYPSC, The Kabin Studio and Safe Gigs Ireland; Voice Your Vision, in collaboration with Cork City Council, Leargas, European Youth Week and The Kabin Studio’s Rhyme Island project, where the young people created a song and music video, which can be viewed at this link and the Anti-Racism Artivist Arena at Electric Picnic, hosted in collaboration with Leargas, Cultivate, Financial Justice Ireland, Go Dance for Change and Safe Gigs Ireland, allowing us to engage with festival goers and disseminate the work among charities and organisations and a large national public audience.
Check out Sauti on Nationwide here.
Rising Voices is an innovative theatre collaboration with Chriszine Backhouse, Kelvin Akpaloo, and the Irish Refugee Council’s Elevate Youth Group to raise awareness about the impact of war.
This project was developed over a week-long residential, and used spoken word poetry, theatre, dance, and music. It was performed at Cork Midsummer Festival, Electric Picnic, and at a culminating symposium at The Smock Alley Theatre, which can be viewed here.
Talent Into Action is a project initiated by Kelvin Akpaloo and supported by Irish Aid’s Innovation Challenge fund. The project brought together young adults from Ghana, Sierra Leone and Ireland, to explore the SDGs and take action on issues that affect them.
Taking inspiration from people affected by the Blood Diamond civil war in Sierra Leone, the group in Sierra Leone created a documentary and an accompanying theatre piece is in development by the Irish participants. The TIA group performed and hosted awareness-raising workshops at Africa Day 2025 in Dublin.
The group has merged with Young Voices of Africa to continue their projects. Keep up with their work here.
You can watch the blood diamond documentary here (discretion advised).
Taking place over Easter holidays, the Make your Voice Heard project brought young people from migrant backgrounds together to express themselves through creative practices, including street art and music. The work they created contributed to a consultation and central event hosted by NYCI and CYPSC aimed at improving services for young migrants living in Co. Clare.
This was a collaboration with young people living in International Protection Accommodation in Co. Clare, the National Youth Council of Ireland, West Walls, and the Gentian Press. It was facilitated by Molly Sterling, Raphael Olympio and Helen O’ Keeffe.