Over the next two years, children and young people on the South West coast will have new opportunities to shape and lead the future of music-making due to an exciting project from the South West Coastal Music Hub Alliance, and all made possible thanks to funding from Youth Music.

The five music hubs in the alliance — Southampton; Isle of Wight; Portsmouth; Dorset; and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole — are working together to reach out to children and young people who are missing out on learning and making music because of their background or life circumstances. 

With the support of “Youth Voice Engagement Workers”, the initiative will help these young people to shape and lead exciting “Action Research” projects: testing out new ideas and approaches which will enable more children and young people to access music in the future. The project will also be co-managed by a young person for the first time.

This initiative is supported by Youth Music, using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

“This is an amazing and exciting project, and we are so grateful to Youth Music for making it possible. We know that young people in our region have incredible ideas and ambitions for making music, and we want to make sure they can access the support they want and need to help make their aspirations and reality.”

— Matt Brombley, Project Manager 

The South West Coastal Music Hub Alliance is recruiting for Youth Engagement Workers as well as a young co-project manager, find out more below:

Young musicians taking part in a music project with Portsmouth Music Hub

Children and young people who are currently missing out on making music will have the opportunity to take part in, and even lead, new music-making activities thanks to an exciting new project from the  South West Coastal Music Hub Alliance, made possible thanks to new funding from Youth Music.

The five music hubs in the alliance — Southampton; Isle of Wight; Dorset; Portsmouth; and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole — are working together to reach out to children and young people who are missing out on learning and making music because of their background or life circumstances. 

Thanks to the support of five new “Youth Voice Engagement Workers”, the initiative will help these young people to shape and lead exciting “Action Research” projects: testing out new ideas and approaches which will help more children and young people access music in the future.

This initiative is supported by Youth Music, using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Matt Brombley, Development Manager at Southampton and IOW Music Hubs, says:
“This is an excellent opportunity, and we are so grateful to Youth Music for making it possible. It might be because of where they live, their background, or the challenging life circumstances they find themselves in, but we know that too many children and young people miss out on the incredible power of music to make their lives better. This initiative will help to change that. We want to hear the voices of the children and young people who miss out on music, and, more importantly, we want them to help us shape and change the music making opportunities available to them, and others like them, in the future.”

---

Job Opportunities

The music hubs that form the South West Coast Music Hub Alliance are looking to recruit Youth Voice Engagement Workers to help make our music hubs more inclusive, by engaging, listening to, and responding to the voices of under-represented young people: helping them shape, and lead, the music-making opportunities available to them.