After Word Cup, we started running weekly workshops in Mosside Home Centre – which is part of Manchester City Council Library. Apples and Snakes gave us some seed money that helped us get special guests for these workshops. The money also helped to pay for one of the facilitators who at the time was a young writer, hip-hop artist and co-founder of Inna Voice. That facilitator\u2019s name was Ali Gadema.<\/p>\n
There were weekly workshops for the local community, in particular black and brown writers who were underrepresented in the literature sector – particularly in Manchester.<\/p>\n
We adopted the name Young Identity because of this group. Really, the etymology of the group was Inna Voice <\/i>who then became \u2018Young Identity\u2019. We tried to find the cr\u00e9me de la cr\u00e9me within the local writing community.<\/p>\n
We committed to weekly workshops for many years and eventually became known as the group that people would strive to get into. Through our partnership with Apples and Snakes, we continued to offer workshops, facilitations and performance opportunities with many other different city organisations. It soon became apparent that we had something good going on here – a platform for young people to use their voice to articulate identity issues both local and globally.<\/p>\n
Over the years we have had many different voices within the projects, lots who have gone on to become recognised voices within the cultural sector. In 2018, with the support of a new board of trustees and a young people\u2019s steering group, we created a new company called Wordsmith Awards. People like Nicole May, Reece Williams and Chris Nelson – who were a part of the small micro charity start- up – started piloting this small project. This project saw us working within schools, doing slam poetry competitions and other projects such as Shake The Dust <\/i>and Shot From The Lip<\/i>.<\/p>\n A Shining Moment for Young Identity<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is extremely difficult to pinpoint a particular cohort of young people or events I am most proud of. If I had to pick one achievement to represent Young Identity\u2019s legacy, it would be Alphabus<\/i>. This was a co-collaborative piece of work with International dance group The Dream Ring with Reggie Regg Roc Gray and his excitable, flexing dances. It was a piece of work commissioned by Manchester International Festival that brought performance poets together with a new form of street dance called FlexN.<\/p>\nYoung Identity perform Spoken Word for Alphabus<\/h4>\n