A Farewell from Nik Tubbs
For almost three years, Nik Tubbs has been the Project Manager leading The Agency in Southampton (Energise Me), with warmth, honesty and unwavering belief in young people.
If you've ever been to an Agency session in Southampton, you'll almost certainly remember another much-loved member of the team too – Doris, Nik's gorgeous dog, whose calm presence quickly became part of Agency life. Together, Nik and Doris helped create a space where young people felt welcome, listened to and able to be themselves.
Across three cohorts and almost 70 young people, Nik has been there to encourage, challenge, celebrate and champion every Agent who walked through the door.
The impact she has made reaches far beyond projects or funding rounds. It lives in the confidence built, opportunities created, communities strengthened and the many young people who now believe more in themselves because someone believed in them first.
As Nik begins a new chapter, she leaves behind not only an incredible legacy in Southampton, but also these reflections on what The Agency has meant to her:
3 Years 3 Cohorts
I worked at The Agency with Energise Me for just shy of 3 years, and in that time I supported three cohorts, and met just under 70 Agents. Not all Agents completed Cycle 1, some left because they didn’t like it, or didn’t have the capacity to commit, or pressure from other sources for their time.
I originally, took every Agent that didn’t stay as a direct failure on my part, I felt that in some way I hadn’t been able to convey to them how much they could get from the programme, especially when I watched their peers flourish and grow in confidence and in their artistic creativity - a young person that steadfastly feels they can’t create a compass on week 1 but by the end have a huge array of ideas to take to panel, and through various workshops led by our amazing facilitators, also have in their arsenal different ways of expressing themselves.
Memories that stick with me
I remember Ophelia Watson from the NHS coming in and doing a slam poetry workshop one Saturday, and some of the Agents were a bit unsure, uncomfortable with something they hadn’t done before- 3 hours later and they were presenting their poetry to each other with passion! They were so good Ophelia recorded some of them for a piece of work she was doing with the NHS.
Unlocking the potential of the Agents is everything, to get them to believe in themselves in the way we do. And it’s a genuine belief - one of the greatest things about the work is that it doesn't just pay lip service to these young people, we are in their corner as they embark on this creative journey, and we stay in their corner as they become Alumni and beyond. I’m very proud to be the biggest cheerleader of the Agents.
Understanding on both sides
I always think of how I show my affection for the Agents, and a lot of it is about accountability, we don’t just give them a free pass to behave how they like, I do hold them to account for lateness, or apathy, but this is done through talking, through understanding on both sides.
Some of our Agents have a lot happening in their lives, and The Agency can be a stable force, a place to be themselves and express themselves in a completely different way than they may have even thought about before, and this can change how they view themselves, can help them see the power they have, the voice they have, the potency they have to make changes in and for their communities.
The Agency is a family, supported by so many people in the community. Energise Me has been so committed to supporting the communities engaging with the agents, attending events, taking photos, running workshops, sitting on panels. It is amazing what organisations can do and the resources they can leverage when they understand and listen to the needs of young people.
Some of my highlights would be…
The most recent community event. This is where the Agents were in charge of the event, where they went to showcase their project ideas for the first time. Some Agents are locked in by the week of community event with a really strong project idea, aesthetic and desire, but for some Agents they are still processing and working it out. The whole cohort divided up the roles from flyer design to the sound system and everything in between, and it was also up to Agents to invite people to attend the event.
This year we had around 140 people turn up to the community event, it was incredible! The buzz in the room, the pride the Agents had in pulling off such a successful event was amazing. They had also networked with Alumni Agents including Abs, who was in the first Southampton Cohort and now has his own food business - ‘The Gambian Kitchen.’ He catered the event, gave away free samples of his menu for everyone to try.
The event was off the scale successful in terms of the Agents organising it, filling it, meeting loads and loads of people they didn’t know, so they got to pitch their project again and again, getting feedback that they could then use to strengthen their final pitch in a few weeks’ time.
I think another highlight of my time working on The Agency also comes from this cohort and it was simply because it showed everything The Agency is.
This year one of the funded projects was Roads2Rings. A boxing workshop project over 8 weeks aimed at teaching boxing to young men who are at risk of gang exploitation, offering a new skill and a positive focus. Each week they bought in someone relevant to do a talk either based on mental wellness or lived experience.
One of the guest speakers was Ade, who had been a Manchester Agent. He was one of the Manchester 10 arrested and sent to prison for something he didn’t do. It was an absolutely dreadful miscarriage of justice that took away years of his life in prison, until his conviction was overturned and he was released.
Ade never gave up, and nor did his supporters. His project when he had been in The Agency had been to create a book "Something to Say" which gave young Black creatives an opportunity to be published. During his time in prison Ade wrote a second book.
When he came to talk to the young men before a Road2Rings session of his life experiences, what had happened and more importantly what next it was the most powerful talk, I have ever listened to in my life, and it had a profound affect on the people in the boxing gym that day.
So this is a highlight because it shows the reach, creating opportunities and networks for alumni across the country. It shows the relevancy of The Agency of Change and how much it is needed because Ade's story needs to be heard in its full context, and for a group of young men who are listening in Southampton because of Roads2Rings project. Hearing Ade talk was so utterly inspirational, I can’t really put it into words.
Harvest of Hope
One project that I think will stay in my heart forever, and I think about a lot is Harvest of Hope. This was created by Chris who wanted to teach young people aged 7-12, how to cook using ingredients often found in food banks. He felt that often young people feel guilty when the parents don’t eat as there isn’t enough food, so by learning how to cook a young person could give something to the family.
This is such a real issue for thousands of families across the UK, and it is irrelevant of culture, religion or race. Any family can find themselves relying on food banks and Chris's project gave young people a skill and an ability to "contribute " something real to the household.
Chris was asked to join Southampton Food Partnership as the youngest person ever after he went and gave a presentation to them about his project. With them he had the opportunity to go to the Houses of Parliament and talk to MP's about the issues facing real families, lobbying MPs for food related change. Read more about Chris’s project here.
My Parting Last Words…
Every single Agent has taken a piece of me, a piece of my heart… But those pieces have been replaced a million times over with the sheer and utter JOY of having been around these Young People, the Agents of Change, the protagonists in their futures.
Watching them grow their ideas, present to a panel, do things they never imagined they would, being utterly utterly silly, and serious, creating incredible art pieces, or slam poetry, identifying what THEIR territory needs, not being told by us what we think, but watching them lead the charge. It has been life-changing for me and I don’t think I will ever be as proud again of anything as I am with these fantastic Agents.
Be brave enough to suck at something new!
Want to see more of this? Read the article “Southampton Young People in Positions of Power” here.