Made with Care: Tackling Social Inequality

Aim

To tackle social and economic inequality by nurturing and elevating the talents of care experienced young people.

What are we trying to acheive?

People in and from care experience some of society’s most shocking statistics, particularly in relation to mental and physical health, attainment, alcohol and drug abuse, and criminalisation.

They are continually under- or mis-represented in the media adding to and perpetuating the stigma that so drastically overshadows their potential ... a potential that Articulate passionately and whole-heartedly exists to help realise. We believe that positive experiences and relationships combined with creative engagement has the power transform the lives of our society’s most disadvantaged children and young people. To help them navigate boundaries, challenge risky behaviour and turn-around those negative statistics and stereotypes.

Why creativity?

Creative engagement can be used as an effective tool for social change, to assure positive outcomes for marginalised young people and challenge the discrimination the young people can face. The Made with Care project is designed to take the creative talents of the young people, develop their innate entrepreneurial spirit and furnish them with the skills to navigate towards a training or a career in the creative industries.

What is Made with Care?

Made with Care is a brand-new social enterprise conceived and lead by care experienced young people from across Scotland. The young people wanted a platform to elevate and share their creative accomplishments.

Made with Care was invented, by accident, in autumn 2019 by a tiny group of young people from foster and kinship care in Glasgow. Inspired by their own creativity and that of others the group now want to employ various artists and designers to support them to develop their aptitudes in graphic, clothing, fabric and homewares design, manufacture, enterprise and marketing and share with more young people how to do what they did.

What makes our project great?

We have just entered our fourth year of a programme that scaffolds care experienced young people to co-design and deliver arts projects and programmes for their own development and for that of others. Essentially, we are becoming a social and creative enterprise generated with, by and for marginalised young people. Our access and participation programme uses the proven benefits of the arts to improve wellbeing, esteem, identity and creativity as well as broadens horizons and life choices and chances.

Made with Care is a unique project that care experienced young people have been asking Articulate to run, hopefully with your help.  It is their ideas and passion that has put this project in motion. Made with Care combines all the aims that Articulate has as their mission: creativity, tackling isolation, financial resilience, skills and training, and social action.

Many of these young people come from some of the most deprived backgrounds in our society. Made with Care allows them to transition towards training and careers in some of the most privileged industries thereby beginning to narrow the gap between advantage and disadvantage.

What will this funding achieve?

The development of a new brand, which has social, educational and economic concepts at its heart and stigmatised children at its helm, is both empowering and inventive. 

With professional support from artists and designers from the thriving creative community, the young people can develop skills for learning and for life, generate their own income, as well as share what they know across the city and beyond. 

Made with Care will be the first project to find a home in Articulate’s new premises at The Pipe Factory, in Glasgow burgeoning East End art scene.

What people say about us:

‘Being creative makes me happy and makes me feel worthwhile, having self-worth is something I’ve always struggled with and doing things that I love really helps keep my mood level and prevents me having too many dips.’ 

Shannon McGeachan, Made with Care young maker, Dec 2019

‘This is a project that you will not see a lot. The fact that it primarily supports care experienced young people is pretty unique. We are often quite far removed from the centre of things.’ 

Nicole Sim, Made with Care young creative, Dec 2019

‘What Articulate is doing is unique.’ Lemn Sissay MBE, poet and playwright, June 2019

‘Articulate is a creative home, it's the first time in my life I’ve felt accepted for who I am.’ 

PJ, young musician, Feb 2020

This project successfully funded on 15th July 2020