Over the last five years Amgeueddfa Cymru ~ National Museum Wales has made a serious investment in an innovative scheme aimed at enthusing, engaging and benefiting young people between the ages of 14 and 24. It has learnt and is still learning from this experience in ways that are influencing its own mainstream activities and informing the wider museums, galleries and archives sector. On Common Ground 2 has performed extremely well against the objectives and targets that were set for it. Thought now needs to be given to what follows it in 2007 and beyond.
Arrival on the scene of On Common Ground has introduced a well-resourced and high quality youth-arts programme, underpinned by its association with an important national cultural institution. It has also connected an artistic approach with heritage and cultural perspectives. Over the last four or five years, considerable experience has been accumulated by Amgueddfa Cymru ~ National Museum Wales and its many youth work and community arts partners which now should be built upon in order the capture the critical learning that could be derived, and which could generate a lasting legacy in the youth work world.
We therefore believe that as well as seeking to ‘roll-out’ the current successful formula to more youth groups, an opportunity should also be sought to review and reflect upon the experience so that OCG’s intrinsic value can be extracted for the benefit of all three practices involved: youth work, community arts and heritage custodianship. Up to now the sheer pace and scale of the OCG2 scheme has tended to prevent opportunities for this kind of reflection.
Using the right combination of skills and by adopting a reasonably detached analytical approach, we believe that Amgueddfa Cymru ~ National Museum Wales could construct a unique training module entitled ‘youth engagement with arts, culture and heritage’, which emphasises OCG’s very effective methodologies, the lessons that have been learnt and its proven successes. This module should be designed for people being trained as youth work practitioners, as well as existing practitioners looking to refresh their skills.