How Young People Speak with Power
Over the years, The Agency has worked with young people whose potential is often overlooked. Through cycles of development and support, Agents plan the change they want to see in their communities, and we work hand in hand with them to turn vision into action.
Nasima Bee, a performance poet, producer and creative practitioner, has developed a series of original poems, Agents of Change, Found and From Seed to Sow. These works capture the stories of our Agents as part of our evaluation process.
Nasima’s poetry invites us to see young people not as numbers, but as individuals — making change from the ground up, with agency and power in their hands.
Read on to explore how Nasima captures The Agency through poetry:
Agents of Change
by Nasima Bee
10 years
And we built a legacy
One that is harnessing limitless possibilities
We turned territories into tribes
Discovering proteges and producing them into professionals
Future world leaders thriving is our pride
10 years
And we crafted confidence in the core of our communities
Constructed capabilities in a culture of trusting the process
Creative methodologies organically blooming into power
Standing on the shoulders of giants
We are our own role models
10 years
Alumni pioneering enterprises with the acceleration of art
Opportunities leading to sustainable means
Radical, real and robust
Trial and error determining longevity
This is a new world order here to stay
Found
by Nasima Bee
You ever tried building dreams
on concrete?
Where postcode wars speak louder
than report cards,
and “potential” is something
they only see in us when we are buried.
Except we learned to bloom despite presumptions
We became our own proteges
With questions in our hands
and purpose in our lungs.
No silver spoons, just
Steel spines and stories to tell.
We are our own blueprint
Not just a name, we give ourselves agency
Be the example
Lead by example
We give ourselves a chance to because we deserve them too
Cycle 1?
That’s vision.
10 weeks of turning “what ifs”
into “watch this”.
We don't talk change
we sketch it, plan it, pitch it
Determination and diligence
Strategy on sticky notes.
3 agents rise
the rest don’t fall,
they join the mission.
Cycle 2?
That’s doing.
It's budgets and breakdowns,
mentors who see us as more than statistics.
Producers backing and believing in us
It’s incubation
watching a spark
turning it into a streetlight
in a neighbourhood that doesn’t often have light shining on it
The Agency enables us Agents to speak power
79% found their voice.
76% said, “I now own my space.”
They now pitch like poets,
build like CEOs,
and research like revolutionaries.
Developing skills
To carry in our backpack
Fuel for the hustle.
Teamwork, branding, budgeting,
and believing in ourselves
like it's a non-negotiable.
87% said we’re still moving different,
years later.
Not just workers.
Architects of the stories we wrote for ourselves.
We stepped out of the postcode,
looked around,
and saw our community as a canvas.
Some of us?
We went back to lift others.
Because what good is growth
if it doesn’t echo?
70% of us saw the world with clarity.
Aware and in awe.
We learned that
the system won’t save us.
But each other?
Maybe we will.
Now we have the tools to change our own circumstances.
Next time they ask
what the impact is —
don’t show them graphs and diagrams.
Show them us.
The 15-year-old who never spoke in class
now hosting panels.
The 22-year-old with a burner idea
that turned into a movement.
The Alumni gathering
like old warriors with new tools.
We are The Agency.
Not a case study.
Not just a charity.
But a revolution.
Honing ambition.
We don’t wait for seats at the table.
We build our own —
out of grit,
community,
and creativity that will not be colonised.
From Seed to Sow
by Nasima Bee
This poem is part verbatim, based on conversations with past Agents Naomi Alexandra Yeboah and Samuel Remi-Akinwale
A flyer found its way through the streets of Manchester,
Contact to Moston and Contact to Moss Side.
An invitation to entrepreneurs.
A project promising to improve the area of those recruited,
enrich the city, and create the next leaders and big thinkers.
A young girl walks in,
curious, with nothing but a postcode—
a shy kind of passion, nervous but ready
for drama and storytelling.
A young boy finds himself calculating,
wanting to “Amplify” music,
aware that potential existed in his ends
but with no means to monetise.
Now they are Agents with £2,000 in hand
and two thousand reasons
to trust themselves,
even as society fails to.
Their doubts begin to dissipate.
Naomi built a drama group for young people,
head full of ideas, heart full of
“can-I-do-this?”—but it grew,
expanded its lungs, and made space
for adults with learning disabilities,
who taught her that art doesn’t age out or able out.
Community doesn’t expire.
A room changes, and so does the work—
and sometimes, so do you.
A preface to a career
uplifting how we treat adults with disabilities.
Samuel built dreams from music notes,
guiding musicians to skill up,
with industry professionals teaching,
grassroots artists become homegrown,
enabled to believe in their craft—
heard, hearing their own tunes.
It’s mad to know:
artists calling themselves artists now,
when before they never would have
considered their craft so generously, with such care.
A preface to a career
developing and supporting young people’s dreams.
The impact of all this?
It teaches:
Age is just a number, sometimes,
when it comes to money,
or trust,
or responsibility,
or a community in your hands.
It teaches:
That intuition isn’t childish,
art isn’t soft,
and there is no right way to do it.
That confidence grows in quiet
before it speaks.
It teaches:
to trust young people,
to encourage them to trust themselves,
to follow a dream—
because to dream is for you and for me.
The Agency is a story shaped by trust, territory and tenacity.
The kind of belief that grows louder
every time a young person
steps into a room
and is seen.
About Nasima Bee
Nasima Bee is a performance poet, producer and creative practitioner. She’s a trustee for Manchester’s Young Identity, and a patron for Contact Theatre. Nasima uses art as a means of activism and her work is an exploration of the everyday through a personal lens that connects to its audience through inquisition and conversation. Nasima focuses on the human, centring stories that are unheard, misrepresented or ignored. Her commissioned works have ranged between performance, theatre, essays, workshop facilitation, film and audio with poetry at the forefront.