It’s week two already of our 2023 Youth of the World programme, and there’s no stopping our diverse young people when they put their minds to designing amazing new things!
This time, arts practitioner Loren brought along an array of exciting materials and tools for our 12-and-overs to make pairs of polymer clay earrings with, and they sure got stuck in with different colours, moulds, and beads to shape their ideal custom accessories.
Polymer clay, once warmed up to a flexible smooth consistency, is easy to make into all kinds of different things in colours as dark or as light as you like, and is also sturdy, lightweight, and affordable – perfect for our statement-loving young fashionistas.
Loren guided them with her expertise through crafting methods and patterns and honed everyone’s eye for colour and techniques, sparking innovation and boosting their arts and crafts confidence and knowledge as part of a tight-knit community along the way.
Have a look below at the bedazzling jewels they made!
Finally, Loren kindly took everyone’s jewellery home to bake in the oven and solidify into wearable jewellery in time for next week – thank you Loren!
Next door, professional animator Toby introduced our 11-and-unders to more stop-motion animation adventures, this time with an underwater theme, and was very generously funded by Manchester Literature Festival.
The aim today was teamwork and creative collaboration, and progressing onwards from the previous week, their first animation was 15 slides, which was then upped to 25, really pushing the limits of everyone’s creative comfort zone!
Our young people’s imaginations were bubbling over as they got to grips with their characters and movements, and they were thrilled to see the finished animation onscreen before their very eyes.
All in all, a job well done – and we can’t wait to see what everyone gets up to next week!
Click on the link to find out about exciting up-and-coming events by our funders Manchester Literature Festival.
And to know more about Afrocats’ work developing meaningful change for isolated and vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers and more in Manchester, visit the ‘Our Work’ page here.