Stranraer gets set for Galloway Young Creatives Festival 2018

As part of Scotland’s official national events programme to celebrate Scotland’s Year of Young People 2018, Police Scotland Youth Volunteers from Stranraer are organising Galloway Young Creatives Festival in the town.

Galloway Young Creatives Festival will be held from Friday 10th August to Sunday 12th August and will see opportunities for young people from Stranraer and across Galloway to engage arts and culture.

The event programme will include workshops led by professional artists, writers and musicians in visual arts such as drawing, sculpture and zine making and as well as workshops in textiles, song-writing and poetry.  Each workshop will be 2-3 hours long and will be a great way for young people to come together and get hands-on with creative processes.

Designed and created by PSYV Stranraer, Galloway Young Creatives Festival has received funding from the Create18 events programme, a fund administered by a group of young people called Communic18, with support from Young Scot, on behalf of EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate.

Event Team Leader Chloe Trussler, said:

“Galloway Young Creatives Festival is going to be great. We’re really looking forward to seeing people from across Galloway coming together to celebrate the Year of Young People 2018 with us.  Stranraer is a town suffering from economic decline which has had an adverse effect on young people especially, therefore the opportunity to put on a festival promoting creativity among young people is fantastic.”

PSYV Group Coordinator PC Graeme Stewart who is Project Support for the festival said:

“This is a pioneering venture led by young people and great for Stranraer.  Galloway Young Creatives Festival is possibly the only festival completely focussed on providing arts and culture based workshops for young people. 

We have great arts and culture heritage in Scotland and it’s the fastest growing sector in the Scottish economy, but the creativity of young people is still so often over looked and under-valued in our communities. 

Through organising this event, our team of Police Scotland Youth Volunteers are trying to change this for Stranraer and in doing so are showing that young people are a true asset to their local community.”

PSYV Stranraer will be working with other partners in the region including Wigtown Book Festival and Upland CIC which runs the Dumfries and Galloway’s artist open studio event Spring Fling.  Galloway-based community cinema outfit Driftwood Cinema have also partnered with the festival and will be screening a film on the Saturday evening.

Around 250 young people are expected to attend Galloway Young Creatives Festival over the weekend.

Galloway Young Creatives Festival will be held on Friday 10th August 2018 – Sunday 12 August 2018 at Stranraer Academy.

Friday evening will see a launch party take place with performances from young musicians and a warm welcome to the festival.

Saturday 11th August and Sunday 12^th August will see a programme of creative workshops as well as

a screening of the live action/animation classic ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ now in it’s 30^th anniversary year.

The weekend will be rounded off with a Culmination Event of the Sunday Evening showcasing work created during the workshops as well as providing a market space for young people to sell their arts and crafts.

As part of the event Wigtown Book Festival have put up a £50 cash prize for a poetry competition which will be judged by artist and poet Martin Joseph O’Neill who is based at The Stove Network in Dumfries.  Martin will also lead a poetry workshop during the festival, a workshop also sponsored by Wigtown Book Festival.

All workshops at the event will be free to attend but will be ticketed through the website Eventbrite and printed programmes will be in circulation shortly.

If you want find out more about the festival follow the festival’s Facebook Page or contact [email protected] For more information about YoYP 2018 visit www.yoyp2018.scot.