Creativity meets community as young people express their dreams through art

• Name Dream Box
• Provider Crawley Community Youth Service

Belonging and fulfilment are two vital ingredients for young people's growth. If these aren't available in the right places, some will look for them from negative influences. Recognising this, Crawley Community Youth Service (CCYS) has morphed from simple youth club to a place where creativity meets community.

Dave Savage, chief executive of CCYS, had noticed a poverty of aspiration among some young people in the more deprived areas of the town, which has a wide variation of wealth. This can mean not everyone can afford expensive extra-curricular activities.

For others, there is a poverty of self-belief after discouraging experiences in more competitive settings. Many have a negative view of education and find it hard to try something new.

Seeking to stretch young people's imagination, CCYS developed Dream Box, a scheme whereby leaders gently tease out of each individual something they would love to try but feel is beyond their reach. Sometimes this is wild and ambitious; others more straightforward.

If it's "I want to bake a cake" a chef comes and teaches them. If it's "I want to be a rock star" they can join the CCYS band, performing regularly, mentored by professional musicians.

The youth centre is now an Arts Awards Centre, so it can recognise work with awards that are equivalent to GCSEs.

One Arts Award project is the Belonging Graffiti exhibition. Several young people wanted to try graffiti art so they invited artist Tom Goulden from youth charity Priority 1-54 to lead them in contemplating "belonging" and thinking of a word to portray. Words like community, pride and respect flowed freely. The young people and artist produced a body of high-quality work which was exhibited at B.Fest (Brighton Fringe) and various locations across Crawley. The next phase involves designing a mural at the Youth Arts Centre. Collectively, this will lead to Bronze Art Awards.

Participants highlighted how the project brought together a diverse group of young people, and Savage wants to harness this community spirit to counter the negative lure of gangs. He says: "There's good belonging: youth clubs, and bad belonging: gangs and knife crime. But that bad belonging stems from this same need to belong to something."

Therefore CCYS trains members as young leaders who then mentor younger participants.

Youth support worker Billy Lewis - a club member in his teens - says the graffiti project "allowed some of our most uninspired young people to find inspiration through artwork".

Another focus of the Arts Awards is music. A Youth Music grant has allowed professional Edd Mann to help musicians prepare for performances and future recordings. For those with a technical flair, there is DJing and the sound desk. They will be working towards Silver Arts Awards in the autumn.

Creative programmes have a specific timeframe - the graffiti project ran from April to July - but Dream Box is limitless. Merging belonging and fulfilment, it teaches young people to trust their instincts and live life with vision and inspiration.

My View: Dilan Nye, 17

"I used to think art was just about looking at a picture but the graffiti art project has completely changed how I see it. Now I realise there's an emotional connection. You can use it to express how you feel.

"I tried graffiti art once before but this time, working on the ‘Belonging' theme, I was more thoughtful, putting more expression into the artwork and, as a result, it was more rewarding.

"In the graffiti project we all chose a word or two to use as the basis for our picture. I chose 'Be You' - as in be yourself.

"The possibility of getting an Arts Award has really changed my view on art and given me a deeper understanding of it. I'm not even doing art GCSE but this has had such a positive effect on me that it's inspired me to consider the possibility of a career in art."