Global Grooves

Aim: Global Grooves wants to develop the next generation of Carnival artists, bringing colour, creativity and joy into our communities.

Who are we?  

Global Grooves brings inspirational Carnival arts from around the world into communities across the UK. From our base in Tameside, Greater Manchester, we enable world-class artists to work with young people and communities to create the most extraordinary opportunities, moments and memories.  Global Grooves is a fully charitable Community Benefit Society registered with the FCA (7807).

 Whether delivering training programmes for young creatives, supporting unemployed adults with new skills or producing outdoor arts programmes to reinvigorate high streets, Global Grooves draws on people’s creativity to imagine and build better futures.  

Our Crowdfunder project: Future Leaders

Future Leaders is our flagship youth leadership scheme. Over the last 7 years we’ve provided 160 talented young people from across UK with life-changing opportunities to develop their artistic skills alongside globally respected artists. They also learn about the business and social side of cultural leadership, gaining hands-on experience running their own creative and social action projects.  And of course, all the young people make new friendships which will last a lifetime.  

‘’Now it all seems a lot more realistic…all these dreams I’ve had about making it my life now seem like they could happen. It’s an amazing experience!’’.  Jay, Future Leader.   

Our funding target

We will be recruiting our next cohort of Future Leaders in summer 2022.  It costs over £2,000 per participant to run this residential youth arts programme and whilst we’ve secured part of our funding target we still have a shortfall. We would love to open this opportunity to as many young people as possible! 

With funding of £50,000 we can recruit a full cohort of 40 Future Leaders from across the UK.  With any additional funding we will open the opportunity to additional young people from the UK and overseas, forging international connections and friendships. We can also invest in our ongoing programme of carnival arts events across the UK, providing hands-on, paid opportunities for our young workforce and joyful celebrations for local communities. 

“It’s crazy to see how much has changed in a year. Those 4 residential weekends quite literally changed my life! I can never thank you all enough for accepting me on board!”   Jordan, Future Leader.

What’s our own journey?

The magic of Future Leaders is that it encourages young people to value their own creativity and to believe that they can make change in their communities.  This has been Global Grooves’ own journey too. Our leadership team - Leon, Holly and Eraldo - first met as teenagers, with a shared passion for drumming and a belief that the arts could make a difference in the world, whether in Brazil, North West England or anywhere else! Two decades later we’re running a major Carnival organisation, reaching hundreds of thousands of audiences globally (and even performing for the Queen!)

Building back after the pandemic

Like all organisations, Covid hit Global Grooves hard. All our events were cancelled and we're now just beginning to  get back on track. But our biggest priority is to ensure that young people once again have opportunities to come together once again in real life: to make music, dance, be creative and connect with others.  Our Future Leaders programme is an important step towards that recovery. 

Thank you. 

For any donation you’re able to make, we’re hugely grateful.