Festival role lands YMCA's Lee job at Norwich theatre

 

Festival City, funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, was a digital exhibition of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival using original and archive materials to be exhibited in The Forum.

 The culmination of a three-month project it encouraged participants to explore and learn about their, and Norwich's, cultural heritage in relation to the Festival, particularly that of the urban spaces of Norwich and the historic churches and venues that have been used as places of performances during the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

 

Taking part in the Culture Works East project, Lee gained professional experience, worked to deadlines and acted as a young ambassador as well as developing research, document handling and archive skills. He also had the opportunity to gain a Level 2 Arts Award and for the second year running volunteered at Norfolk & Norwich Festival, which was where the Theatre Royal spotted his talents.

 

This all helped him when he applied for a job as an usher at the Theatre Royal, as he explained: “I was involved in the photography and also took on the role of a peer leader. I learnt how to work with other people a lot better and I still do work with Culture Works East on a voluntary basis as a peer leader to help support the groups that they work with.”

 

Lee’s job now includes selling programmes, working on the sales points in the intervals and selling ice creams in the auditorium.

 

Lee, who has been in supported lodgings with YMCA Norfolk and currently lives in its St Giles Street accommodation, said: “I enjoy the job, the people I work with and the confidence boost it has given me. One day I would like to work my way up to a front of house manager at the theatre.”

 

Elli Chapman, director of Culture Works East, said that several people on the photography project had gone on to find jobs or would continue with volunteering: "We are really proud of Lee’s achievements. Lee has taken part in Culture Works activity for the last two years, taking part in a range of projects. This included Festival City and volunteering supported by us, through a scheme Team East for Skills which helps unemployed people to improve their skills, engage in volunteering activity and in some cases, like Lee gain employment.

 

She goes onto say: “These people have quite chaotic lives. This is a really good example of a way of using art for engaging. It has been great to see Lee progress through our projects developing his personal, social and employment skills to get to such a positive outcome. He even walks taller now!”

 

She said that many of the people taking part had not been to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival before. Each week of the project, the people taking park did workshops with Culture Works East and professional photographers, broadcast journalists, historians, international performers and sound designers.