LIVE FROM THE SOUTHBANK, LONDON
See video below of #OurSeeMonster at the #CreativeCoalitionFestival
A hefty price
For many years we have been highlighting the need to inspire primary children with creativity and collaborate with school communities and forged many constructive collaborations to help us to do just that.
This is now more critical than ever with the UK facing the #CreativityCrisis we predicted then, most recently highlighted by the #SaveOurSubjects campaign we’ve helped launch with 30 other organisations and a statement by the Technology Minister Michelle Donelan essentially announcing a #TechSkillsCrisis given that “unfilled vacancies in the UK technology sector are costing UK GDP £150 BILLION”
Here’s the back story about what we do, have done and want to do.
#OURMILLION22 APPEAL
We know what we do works, it engages kids and connects communities.
We now need to scale it and launched the #OurMillion22 appeal to Raise a Million Quids to Inspire a Million Kids with Creativity’
We want to get up to 22 of our pop-up creativity day Art Trucks and STEAMSters on the road this year.
If you can spare a quid or more, please click here to chip in
“If you want an Industrial Strategy, start in Primary Schools”
Said Lord Heseltine, former deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Industry to the BBC in 2016, echoing similar words form Lord Robert Winston at the Mayor of London’s Education Conference a few years before.
That’s what we’ve been doing for 12 years now at STEAM Co. and is the message we’re taking to the Creative Coalition this week, at The Southbank Centre, in the shadow of a cardboard oil rig we’ve built there,
A CARDBOARD OIL RIG?
Five years ago we were briefed by the then Culture Minister on the Government’s £120m Unboxed2022 Festival of Creativity and Innovation, and hoped our creative community engagement model could be part of it.
But they went with ten epic multi-million pound projects, not a grassroots community enterprise like ours.
We were delighted to win ten youth and community travel grants at the end of 2022 to take trips from across the UK to one of the ten projects - #SeeMonster - a £10m project that saw them drag an old North Sea rig round the coast and set it up on the beach at Weston Super Mare, with solar panels, a small forest and windmills - a study in reuse, the environment and weather but not nesessarily sustainbility, as it was only open to the public for just 8 weeks and due to be scrapped.
In response to public demand we started a petition to #SaveSeeMonster and presented it to DCMS, projecting the names of signatories across The Thames onto parliament.
And #WeSavedSeeMonster - well, virtually anyway, reincarnate in cardboard, code and our creativity in school communities across the country
And #OurSeeMonster is on The Southbank at the Creative Coalition Festival for all to see,
#SAVEOURSUBJECTS
We’re delighted to be collaborating with 30 organisations led by the Independent Society of Musicians and The Edge Foundation on the #SaveOurSubjects campaign, a response to the #CreativityCrisis in our schools that will soon ripple through to the creative industires and wider economy.
We’ve already used #OurSeeMonster as stage in Liverpool for the launch of the with performances by children from across the city lived streamed from it.
#TECHSkILLSCRISIS
As her part of a HM Treasury briefing at Bloomberg’s UK HQ recently, the then Culture Minsiter, now Technology Minister Michelle Donelan said how vacancies in the UK tech industry are costing UK GDP a staggering £150 billion a year and essentially announced a #TechSkillsCrisis.
We discussed this in our workshop at the LGfL EdTech conference in Liverpool Street recently as you can see here.
AIN’T NO STOPPING US NOW
We’ve been at this for years now and it all finally seems to be coming together.
BBC RECOGNITION
Back on New Years Eve, our co-founder Nick Corston was chosen as one of the BBC’s #100Londoners for his work around creativity and community.
ARTS COUNCIL AWARD
We have been shortlisted for the Arts Council’s prestigious Digital Culture Awards in two categories - Digital Ambassador and Digital Transformation - see film above.
CHARITY FILM AWARDS SHORTLIST
Our film ‘Tayo’s Road Awesome’ about our adventures with a young lad from Tilbury and See Monster has shortlisted for the Charity Film awards.
Please do watch it below and vote for it in the people’s award with a click with a click in 15 secs here.