First donation to the ACA candle campaign
Our heartfelt thanks to Dr Chris and Hazel Abbott for being the first donors to our candle campaign!
We are asking for donations of £300 to buy a candle on our celebration cake. Alongside your donation you can nominate 10 people for a year's free ACA membership, or you can donate ten bursary memberships to ACA. Each bursary membership will be given to an emerging artist who the Trustees feel would be a valuable part of ACA, but who does not have the funds to become a member.
Why donate?
We campaign for the right of every child aged 0-12 to access the arts, regardless of their background or personal circumstances. We are particularly passionate about ending inequality in arts education.
A recent report from the Social Mobility Commission found that children from the poorest families are 3 times less likely to be involved in extra-curricular arts activities.
Although we have been running this campaign since 1998, politicians are yet to listen and appreciate the value of instilling creativity in all our children. We need to continue working with teachers, practitioners and arts organisations to democratise arts education.
In the last 18 months our charitable activities have included:
The Arts Backpack UK: In Autumn 2018 we commissioned a Feasibility Study for an Arts Backpack project in the UK. Since publication, we have spoken to over 50 organisations across the four nations, and coordinated a first phase of pilots in Fife and Leicester. Each child will be entitled to at least five quality arts encounters a year.
Networking events: Around 500 people have attended ACA networking events.
The JM Barrie Awards: The 2018 JM Barrie Awards celebrated Stuart and Kadie Kanneh-Mason as role-models to all parents of creative children. In 2019, the JM Barrie Awards honoured Sir Philip Pullman CBE, for a lifetime's achievement in delighting children.
Listening to Children: We are working closely with children from Chickenshed Theatre to develop our research and evaluation structures. Our first piece of child-led research was conducted through schools' newspaper First News in autumn 2019.
We need as big a network as possible in order to push the message home to government that the arts are an important part of all our lives. In these turbulent times, the cultural sector needs to stand together and demand a better future for our children.
Your donation will give us a stronger voice, and enable us to keep making this demand for another twenty years to come.