Hello youth arts enthusiasts and welcome to The Ripple Effect project homepage! 

The Ripple Effect is a project led by NYCI’s Youth Arts SPEAKS group – a bunch of young people who are passionate about the arts and creativity! We are a diverse group with a wide range of arts, youth work, and life experience who have come together to share our love for the arts with young people across Ireland and with hopes of making artistic spaces more accessible.

Last year we set out on a journey to consult with young people across Ireland about three main themes:

  • What does youth arts means to young people
  • How do they find out about youth arts opportunities and what are the best ways to find out about youth arts opportunities.
  • What stops young people from taking part in youth arts, what might solve those problems and what each of us can do to help.

About The Ripple Effect Project

Before we get into all of the fruitful findings from our workshops, we would firstly like to give you a quick whistle stop tour of what we mean by youth arts and access. 

Youth Arts is an approach to working with young people through a wide range of art forms that supports our development, puts us at the centre of making decisions and creating work and respects our contribution as young artists. It provides a safe space to explore things we care about and provides a platform to help us share how we feel about our lives and the world we live in. We have all taken part in youth arts experiences in our youth work settings, youth arts or arts groups. Our experiences have really impacted on our lives and how we see ourselves.

We came together last year and started talking about the future of the group and what we wanted to do together. We all have a common goal of ensuring equality of access and opportunity to the arts for all young people. Talking together about what youth arts has meant to us really highlighted the fact that not all young people get to have these great experiences. Everyone is creative and they just need an opportunity to release and realise that they are creative. Youth arts is a different learning experience that all young people should have access to. It’s not fair that young people have barriers that are stopping them from accessing creative opportunities, stopping them from knowing about the range of art forms they can take part in, stopping them learning and growing through the arts.

Of course, in order for us to be able to travel all over Ireland and make our workshops accessible we needed financial support. We were delighted to be funded by the European Solidarity Corps through their Solidarity Project fund! This grant meant that all young people and organisations who participated in our workshops didn’t have to pay a cent! You can find out more about Solidarity Projects on the Leargas website.

This grant also gave us the opportunity to be trained in creative facilitation and have a few days where we could come together as a group in Dublin and plan and discuss our workshops. 

Two of our members also got to travel to Prague to meet young people from across Europe who were also taking part in Solidarity projects. We learned so much about issues that other young people are passionate about and how they manage their project.

When reaching out to groups of young people, we specifically wanted to target groups from diverse backgrounds that were already involved with youth arts as well as groups with no experience in youth arts as we wanted to hear from every perspective! The groups we engaged with are from rural and urban areas, disadvantaged areas and/or have additional needs and we managed to engage young people from an age range of 10-23. 

The workshops were planned in a way that we were able to gather as much information as possible about their experience in the arts and were facilitated in a way that was appropriate for their needs and of course, fun! 

We want to say a huge thank you to the young people and youth workers from the following services / groups for taking part in the Ripple Effect Workshops: Ronanstown Youth Service (Crosscare, Dublin 22); The Yo-Yo Youth Cafe (Youth Work Ireland Midlands, Mullingar); Up Cork Youth Project (CDYS, Cork City), The National Gallery Youth Panel (Dublin); M.A.D. Youth Theatre (Dundalk).

Our ultimate goal from this project was to create a Ripple effect. We wanted to spread the word of youth arts goodness and encourage young people to get involved. But in extension from the information we gathered from facilitating the workshops, we wanted to be able to communicate to youth arts practitioners, youth workers and funders what works, and how to create these incredible spaces for the young people you either work with or advocate for!

This resource has captured the voices of the young people we had the pleasure of working with over the last year. You will see the impact of the arts from the perspective of young people who have been involved, some critical points around access and we have compiled some resources from the workshops we facilitated to give you a head start in consulting young people through creative facilitation! 

Finally, we would like to let you know that we are far from finished with our work as a group and we would love to hear from you! Please tell us all your amazing experiences but also let us know if you have identified things that you think could improve youth arts spaces. 

The Ripple Effect Journey

An important part of this project was our journey to get to know each other and build on each others’ strengths, to develop our skills in creative facilitation and stretch ourselves to try new things.

We’ve been busy reflecting on our path through this project and what we’ve learned from taking part. Now is your chance to get to know us and our journey through the project a bit better by checking out the sections below!

Meet the members of the Youth Arts SPEAKS group who worked on The Ripple Effect project in 2023/2024! Click on the image to read more about each young person.

Hope Omoregie

Katie Hickey

Pádraig Harrington

Sarah Whelan

Sibéal Ní Dhuibhir

Michael Sibanda

Evie O’Brien

Ruairi Mannix

Watch our video to find out more about our journey through The Ripple Effect Project in 2023/2024! Discover where the idea for The Ripple Effect project came from and how we work together as a national group spread out all over the country! See what we’ve discovered about youth arts, about each other and about our facilitation styles and skills! And check out what we think about the barriers that stop young people from taking part in youth arts and the impact we hope our Ripple Effect project will have.

A big shout out to the amazing Evie O’Brien, Youth Arts SPEAKS member and film-maker extraordinaire, for making this great short film and to all the Youth Arts SPEAKS members for their participation!

The Ripple Effect Resource

Click on each section of the resource below to find out more about what we learned about youth arts, accessibility and barriers to participation from the young people who participated in our Ripple Effect workshops.

We hope this resource will help youth workers, artists, funders, policy makers and key organisations understand where young people are coming from and understand steps that can be taken to increase access to youth arts. We hope the workshops and resource will inspire new, local youth arts advocates who can spread the message and remove barriers to participation in their own communities. This ‘ripple effect’ has inspired our project title and is at the heart of what we wanted to achieve in this project.

Through our Ripple Effect workshops and our own activities, we explored what youth arts means to young people. Youth arts provides young people with:

  • A sense of belonging and community
  • A safe space
  • Creative expression
  • Mental health benefits
  • Personal growth and learning
  • Co-creation
  • New friendships and social connections
  • Journey of self-discovery
  • Opportunity for everyone

Watch our short video to find out more!

All images and findings are drawn from our own activities and our Ripple Effect workshops with young people from Ronanstown Youth Service (Crosscare, Dublin 22); The Yo-Yo Youth Cafe (Youth Work Ireland Midlands, Mullingar); Up Cork Youth Project (CDYS, Cork City), The National Gallery Youth Panel (Dublin); M.A.D. Youth Theatre (Dundalk).

Through our Ripple Effect workshops and our own activities, we explored how young people find out about youth arts opportunities so they can join in and take part! Young people learn about youth arts through or from:

  • Youth workers, youth arts facilitators and mentors
  • Word of mouth
  • Schools and community members
  • Social media
  • Referral systems
  • Flyers and local promotions

Watch our short video to find out more!

All images and findings are drawn from our own activities and our Ripple Effect workshops with young people from Ronanstown Youth Service (Crosscare, Dublin 22); The Yo-Yo Youth Cafe (Youth Work Ireland Midlands, Mullingar); Up Cork Youth Project (CDYS, Cork City), The National Gallery Youth Panel (Dublin); M.A.D. Youth Theatre (Dundalk). 

Through our Ripple Effect workshops and our own activities, we explored what stops young people from taking part in youth arts. We found that several barriers prevent young people from participating in youth arts:

  • Lack of inclusivity and accessibility
  • Feeling out of place
  • Stereotypes and stigma
  • Limited resources and support
  • Personal challenges
  • Lack of representation and relatable role models 
  • Communication issues

Watch our short video to find out more!

All images and findings are drawn from our own activities and our Ripple Effect workshops with young people from Ronanstown Youth Service (Crosscare, Dublin 22); The Yo-Yo Youth Cafe (Youth Work Ireland Midlands, Mullingar); Up Cork Youth Project (CDYS, Cork City), The National Gallery Youth Panel (Dublin); M.A.D. Youth Theatre (Dundalk). 

Through our Ripple Effect workshops and our own activities, we explored what might help more young people take part in youth arts and improve equality of access. We found that several solutions can encourage wider participation in youth arts:

  • Accessible communication
  • Outreach and relationship building
  • Opportunity for ownership
  • Peer influence
  • Diversifying art forms
  • More funding and resources
  • Social media engagement
  • Ladder of participation
  • Remove barriers
  • Representation and diversity
  • Policy-level support
  • Public transport access

Watch our short video to find out more!

All images and findings are drawn from our own activities and our Ripple Effect workshops with young people from Ronanstown Youth Service (Crosscare, Dublin 22); The Yo-Yo Youth Cafe (Youth Work Ireland Midlands, Mullingar); Up Cork Youth Project (CDYS, Cork City), The National Gallery Youth Panel (Dublin); M.A.D. Youth Theatre (Dundalk). 

After working with other young people in our Ripple Effect workshops, we gathered together what we had learned about the kind of actions we could all take to improve equality of access to youth arts:

  • Reach out to communities
  • Conduct research
  • Facilitate longer and inclusive processes
  • Challenge perceptions of youth arts
  • Break down barriers to entry

Everyone can be a youth arts advocate! Whether you’re a young person, a youth worker, an artist, a youth arts facilitator, manager or funder, we can all get better at advocating for youth arts! Download our Top Tips for becoming a Youth Arts Advocate and be part of the Ripple Effect!

  • Consider the value of your work
  • Leverage peer advocacy
  • Use representatives
  • Create change through meaningful representation
  • Identify opportunities for arts and lots more!

The Ripple Effect Webinar

On October 4th 2024, the Youth Arts SPEAKS group hosted a special webinar to share their project journey and results. Click on the video to watch our event and hear more about our journey to consult creatively with other young people and explore how we can all work together to make youth arts more accessible to young people.

Get Involved! Be Part of the Ripple Effect!

Join the Youth Arts SPEAKS group!

Are you aged 18 to 25 and passionate about youth arts and creativity? Join our Youth Arts Speaks group and have your voice heard!

We would love to hear from you if you would like to join the Youth Arts SPEAKS group for their next project in 2025!

The Ripple Effect Resource: Tell us what you think!

We’d love to hear your feedback on the resource, what you feel youth arts means to young people and what your views are on the actions we can take to improve equality of access to youth arts. Use this form to tell us what you think!

Are you a... Please tick 1 box!(Required)
Do you feel the Ripple Effect Resource represents the views of young people about youth arts and access to youth arts?
Privacy Policy(Required)

Contact Information

If you would like more information about The Ripple Effect and the Youth Arts SPEAKS group or would like to engage with the group members, please contact Rhona Dunnett, National Youth Arts Programme manager at rhona@nyci.ie 

The Ripple Effect is a Solidarity Project, funded by the European Solidarity Corps.

You can find out more about Solidarity Projects here: Solidarity Projects – Leargas