ROSA FUNDING APPLICATION
“I love feeling like I’ve made a difference” Scarlett, 18
The UK chapter of the international initiative
SHAPE YOUR CULTURE 2014 ROSA FUNDING APPLICATION We are AnyBody UK, the UK chapter of local-global organisation Endangered Bodies. Our work is dedicated to giving voice to groups and individuals challenging our devastating acceptance of body hatred as normal. We collect evidence, raise awareness and speak out to challenge government policy and complacency. In 2012-13, generous funding from Rosa UK allowed us to launch Shape Your Culture. This is a successful programme for young women at secondary-school age around body image and the (mis) representation of women in various areas of our culture. Through a series of long-term programmes and one-off workshops, Shape Your Culture invites participants to develop a sense of agency in relation to the culture that surrounds them. It takes as a starting point their needs, dreams, interests and talents, and helps them develop their own version of creative activism in response to those things that they find oppressive. SYC groups have made films, launched campaigns, developed social media networks, created zines, t-shirts and artwork, and discussed the state of young women’s bodies in education at a debate in the houses of parliament. As a consequence of their involvement in SYC, the young women have developed the self-sufficiency, confidence and skill to autonomously continue their work, for example by setting up a feminist society and arranging film screenings in their local community centre. In its first year, Shape Your Culture reached over 650 young women, and this was only possible through the support from Rosa and the belief which Rosa’s members placed in our work. We now ask Rosa to consider supporting the next development of the Shape Your Culture project, which will enable it to continue to grow in reach and impact.
SHAPE YOUR CULTURE:
Proposal for the next stage of development We are asking for funding to develop Shape Your Culture: Do What You Can This is an online platform (see overleaf for a visual representation) on the SYC website which offers activities and challenges in the context of body image, representation of women, and sexualization. This resource will be suitable for girls and young women aged 9 upwards. It is complimented by the resources already available on the SYC website.
SYC WEBSITE It will look something like this:
Clicking on each challenge opens up a page to which the individual’s experience of doing it can be uploaded, and where all other uploaded experiences can
be viewed.
What it does: The most important thing when discussing issues that are experienced as oppressive to young women, is to offer options for what they can do in response to them. This resource supports this process, and encourages young women to trust themselves, be active, and raise their voices in many different ways.
Workshops as part of Shape Your Culture: Do What You Can Some of the challenges are flagged. This means that they are also available as an SYC workshop, provided by the SYC team at a competitive rate. We want to produce a one-off workshop tour (across the UK) enabling young women to be informed and take part in a SYC creative activist action. The tour would launch the young women into the
Shape Your Culture: Do What You Can/DIY/Pick and Mix activities and inspire them to work on their own project indivually or in a group. We will also continue to offer the option of a 4 week workshop for those based in the London and South East area.
Teaching packs Some schools are unable or unwilling to invite external workshop leaders into their schools, or are geographically hard to reach. In order to support those teachers who would still like to engage their students in these issues, Shape Your Culture: Do What You Can will be accompanied by a teaching pack. This provides teachers with the necessary resources and information to guide them through taking up the challenges with their students, and to allow them to create contextualizing lessons. The teaching pack will be designed in consultation with teachers as well as young women, which will enable us to design a format which can be matched with the demands of the curriculum in various subjects. In this way, both the discussion and the activities can compliment the normal lesson content, which will make it more likely for teachers to find the time and space to include them in a demanding teaching schedule.
DISSEMINATION:
Shape Your Culture: Do What You Can will be disseminated • • • • •
to state schools in the UK through drawing upon the School Email database to previous SYC participating schools and community centres to the waiting list of schools interested in running SYC projects through the SYC and AnyBody social media networks through social media networks of our collaborators, such as Everyday Sexism and No More Page 3
A Launch Reaching and Inspiring Women and Girls To launch the second year running of SYC, we are also planning a Twitter party, which will be led by a panel of young women linked to SYC with Susie Orbach. We would also be delighted to include Rosa staff in this, as this would be a great way to celebrate the work Rosa is doing.
Why this is the right way to take SYC forward Through running SYC for over a year now, we have been able to trial various formats for the delivery of our projects, and have established crucial pressure-points and the most effective time-scales. We know that although long-term projects are highly desirable, as they allow participants to develop their ideas over time, the most important ingredients to empower young women are • information • guidance and suggestions through which to become active participants in shaping their own culture • resources to help them make their ideas reality • a platform through which to share their creative activism All of this will be covered by our plans for development. Out of our experience in the first year of SYC we have now been able to establish an efficient, streamlined way to move forward, which will enable us to reach more young women at less cost, and which will crucially empower teaching staff to get involved and take the initiative in covering a complex and sensitive topic.
Cost We estimate the cost for this phase of SYC as £20,000. With this application we are asking Rosa for funding to cover £15,000 of this cost. The remaining costs will be covered through ongoing fundraising and contribution of small workshop fees from participating schools.
What will success look like? Success is expanding the reach and impact of SYC to not only more schools and community groups in London and the South East but also up and down the country. Success is establishing a format that empowers both young women and teachers to autonomously undertake SYC activities, whilst feeling supported by the resources SYC has to offer. Success is seeing a diversity of young women confidently sharing opinions and actively participating in the culture that surrounds them. We will measure it by • • • • •
The number of schools and community groups we reach through the tour The number of teachers who use/download our teachers pack The number of young women who take up the Shape Your Culture: Do What You Can challenges/actions The number of people who interact with the projects produced The feedback received from young women and mentors involved
In addition, our SYC mentors (via a Q&A page on the SYC website, inspirational & relevant blog posts and through project reviews) will be on hand to answer any questions that the young women may have and monitor the progress of the projects.
“The experience was great fun, especially making friends with people I wouldn’t have really spoken to within the college otherwise and getting to be creative working towards a cause that means a lot to me!” Jorden, 17
“SYC gave the young women confidence and assurance that they don’t have to face their problems with self-acceptance alone” Marta SYC Mentor