Overcoming Barriers with Creativity in Chester (Part 1)
Digital Storyteller Max chatted with Agents Ethan and Tyler from Lache in Chester, creators of The Storyteller and Food Communita respectively. Manchester Correspondent Diana interviewed Mary and Melissa, Agents who founded MASK and Inner Canvas respectively. Their projects have been funded by The Agency Chester (Storyhouse), who supported them to deliver a pilot of their projects in Lache.
The Storyteller invited 55 children to use books to learn of social issues like individuality and cultural connection, inspired by Ethan’s background as a queer immigrant. With help from Agent Nancy, Ethan built a welcoming community among families in Lache with activities like robot building and nature-inspired craft.
Food Communita recreated the warm family dinner vibe Tyler felt was important, especially among high-school-aged children. With the help of Agents Cian and Herbert, young people enjoyed free meals together, along with activities like stress ball making. Guest speakers not only supported their mental wellbeing but also helped strengthened their bonds with each other. Listen to the podcast below:
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Max
We are The Agency of Change, a charity for 15 to 25 year olds that champions creativity for leadership and opportunity. The young people involved are Agents, project creators who want positive change in their communities. We're all over the UK in places like London, Manchester, Southampton, Bolton, Belfast. And in today's podcast, we're covering Chester. I'm Max Wiseman and I chatted with young people in the Lache part of Chester who are really making a difference with their variety of projects. The first Agent I chatted with was Ethan, creator of The Storyteller, an interactive event at the Lache Library, bringing families together in a really engaging environment.
Ethan
The Storyteller in essence, it's basically having families come together to learn more about different social issues through children's books and storytelling with our storyteller, Owen Ellis, who is genuinely so amazing. It matters to me personally as opening up conversations about social issues is a really hard hitting thing for me personally. Growing up as a queer immigrant, it really hurt to see how othered people felt, people like me felt when it came to learning about these issues and working through them with other people is really emotional and we've had a great turnout at our sessions, so I'm really proud of that.Max
How has your understanding of your community changed since you started your project?Ethan
Since starting, it's been interesting because I've gotten to know some of the younger families in the area and I've gotten to see how they interact with the storytelling sessions and how they open up to it.Max
Where did your idea for The Storyteller come from?Ethan
Well, it came from my family. My older brother and his fiancé now are really into reading and they really push social change and helping people with different social issues talk about them and work through them. And it came from a personal want to help people who are queer, people who are immigrants, people who have dealt with racism, xenophobia in their area. And I wanted to be that change. I wanted to be the face of change.Max
How did you originally hear about The Agency?Ethan
I had heard about The Agency through one of my upperclassmen named Joel. Actually he came into our class and basically advertised The Agency to us as a way of helping people, as a way of embodying change and wanting to help others. And I really felt a need to use my platform as someone who could help. It was such an interesting experience. Getting to talk to people older than me who've had more experience on dealing with issues like this. Getting to present my idea to people who have had experience going through these issues was truly a harrowing experience, but I really enjoyed it. It was great. It was genuinely so awesome. The most unexpected event for me so far would have been getting picked, my project, being picked, and getting to talk to my family about how moving forward I could help a community.Max
Tell me a bit about the people helping you on your project.Ethan
Well, we had three project managers so far, them being Treena, Millie and Lizzy. And they have been so wonderful. They've helped me through so much, whether that be social media or talking and emailing different people or just building my confidence. It's been such an enjoyable experience working with them. Like, I can't even put into words how much I enjoy it.Max
And what about fellow Agents?Ethan
Working with my fellow Agents, it's been so fun on, well, one of the projects, the Open Air Cinema, Lache, they've been so fun to work with. I'm actually best friends with one of their agents, Seden, and she's been really a rock for me when it comes to this. She's one of the main reasons that I wanted to start doing The Agency. Me and her, we ended up joining together. So it's been really fun getting to bloom into our relationship, our friendship.Max
Are there any Agents who have helped you in particular on your project?Ethan
Oh my gosh, Nancy. Big shout out to my project partner, Nancy. She's been so amazing. I can't put into words how much I enjoy working with her. She's so funny, she's so creative, and she's been the biggest help when it comes to my project and working through it.Max
So what is something you're really going to take away from working on this project?Ethan
One of our main issues when working with this project is our advertising. So I'm definitely going to take away being better at that for sure.Max
How did you advertise and catch the attention of different families?Ethan
Getting the different families in? We've used Facebook, we've used Instagram, we've used, heck, we've even gone to the Community Centre and talked to people in person about our project. We've also used some of our other projects like the Open Air Cinema or Food Communita and the Study Sphere as different ways of advertising. We've asked families to talk to the people in their area about having their family come down to our sessions. So I'd really hope to work with them in the future if possible.Max
Talking about the future, do you see yourself bringing The Storyteller back?Ethan
Oh, for sure. The library have actually asked to put The Storyteller in different libraries in our local area. They've asked if it would be okay to use our project as a backboard, as a springboard, even to launch this and have it in different areas so as many as they can do it.Max
In what is something you really want to add to The Storyteller.Ethan
I would definitely have more sessions if I had the resources and the ability to do it. I would 100% have way more sessions going through each of the different books in our Storyteller section. And I'd really like to get more families in the local area involved and get their response and their reaction and see how we could have changed our community. I'm so excited to see where our project leads into the future. Like helping different families talk about these social issues has been truly an experience that I could never forget.Max
The next Agent is Tyler, creator of Food Communita.Tyler
Food Communita. It basically acts as a way for young people age 11 to 17 to come together in like a safe space and take part in activities and well being to hopefully make them feel better. As well as games, particularly games. I didn't scout because I believe, like it's a lot of fun. We all have like a meal. This depends on what the participants want. It's a free meal. People don't have that sort of family dinner vibe anymore. And so that's what we're trying to create. I think it matters because especially in Lache, like I've noticed a lot of young people at that age are struggling with well being. I mean, I myself struggle a lot with it, especially during those high school years from 11 to 17. I picked that age range specifically because I feel as if it's underlooked a lot.
Even though people speak a lot about mental health and well being, I believe that in my experience those people are often underlooked. And so it's best to target those people because I can help them. Sort of the help I didn't get. You know, went to high schools and we spoke to pastoral support, which is like they sort of help people on the well being. We explained the project to them, all the perks for the young person. But we told them to not sort of describe it as a way to boost well being, but as a laugh and food. We did obviously explain, you know, the well being side of it, but I think it's just better, a better way to attract people without sort of labelling it with the well being thing because that doesn't really work for them.Max
What has been the most memorable or unexpected moment from joining The Agency?Tyler
Definitely getting funded. I did not expect that to happen. I mean went through a lot of my Agency compass and what I can then do to form an idea. When I presented a panel it was very bare bones, like it was just I want to do a free meal to people who are struggling with well being to create the family vibe. After that we incorporated all the games activities. The games side from my history of scouts came to it. I mean we've had like guest speakers, people from Radiate Arts come in which is like a group of people and I'm dead proud of it. Someone that was helping me in my project, they invited someone from Radiate Arts to come. They said, you know, if you want to contact us, we're happy to help.
And then I had a meeting with someone from Radiate Arts, their name was Pam who then presented the idea of, you know, someone can come and help show the creative side of mental well being.Max
What advice would you have to a young person who wants to start a project to change their area?Tyler
Just trust the process.Max
Looking back now, what is one thing you'd want to say to yourself at the start of The Agency?Tyler
Trust the people around you. Because Treena, Millie, who I've mentioned, I think they've definitely had the biggest influence on this project. It looked amazing. Like them, we had a game with a funny looking pen. Yeah, they all enjoyed it. It was great.
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