WAYOUT - WORLDWIDE ARTS YOUTH LIMITED
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Mission Statement
WAYout changes the lives of street, vulnerable, incarcerated and conflict affected young people through the arts. We offer free training and shelter, make films that can effect change and record music that enables the excluded to re-engage. We promote artistic freedom, education and empowerment for the most marginalised young men and women, including in the prisons and psychiatric hospital.
About This Cause
WAYout is a UK registered charity (registration number 1123777) working in Sierra Leone since 2008 - a country with 70% youth unemployment. WAYout works with street, disadvantaged, conflict affected and incarcerated young people, offering free music, digital media and writing facilities and training. We seek to change and improve the lives of the most vulnerable, marginalised and conflict affected youth through music, art and filmmaking. WAYout runs music sessions in the male and female prisons and in the Psychiatric Hospital. We also have a mobile studio that goes out in to the province where there are no similar facilities. Recently we opened a women’s media group (WMG) near in the provinces which has 60 trained and active, female members who have already made films about early marriage, sexual health and fistula. It is this group that we are asking for funding for. Our achievements – some highlights WAYout opened the first free music studio in Brookfields, Freetown, in 2012 and since then, we have worked with over 5,500 young, disadvantaged men and women. We now have a training studio where young people learn to be producers, a prison studio and mobile studio which reaches remote parts of the country where there is very high unemployment and little to do. Most women and girls are farmers, married early, barely had any education or are sex workers. Music gives a voice and confidence and gives hope where previously there was none. Recording a track and having something to show and be proud of has enabled many to be re-united with family and community after many years. For some it helps them reconnect with other kinds of learning. We run professionally-led training, courses and qualifications in documentary and drama filmmaking which includes camera, editing, research and directing. Many WAYout trainees now work for National TV stations or as freelancers and we have made over 400 films. We also teach photoshop design and in learning these computer programmes people are also learning basic computer techniques. Our poetry group has now published three anthologies of poems and drawings which are in the UK’s National Poetry library and 2 poets have won international grants. We ran Sierra Leone’s first poetry slam which gave recognition to our poets who went on to be published online and in other publications. Our photographers have been exhibited in the UK and USA with Mash P now exhibiting in Bridport Arts Centre. Over all we have worked with over 5,000 youth. 30 new young people walk through our doors every month. We have had our films in innumerable film festivals and won several major awards as well as being broadcast on TV, thus raising awareness of issues faced by street youth and women, nationally and internationally. We have worked with Marie Stopes, GOAL, Mental Health Commission, Ballanta Music Academy, Street Child, Global Dialogues, AMNET and UNFAO to make documentaries on important social issues, such as Ebola, FGM and mental health issues - but we also do things that are fun, music clips, drama and comedy. A lot of WAYout members who live on the streets are also in gangs. It’s the only way to survive, especially for those who are ex combatants, but they leave their colours at the gate when they come in. Music draws them in, it’s cool and they learn without realising they are learning. We have no time limit because we have learned that it can take two years for someone to go from hanging out to realising they can actually learn something and get stuck in. In 2021 we made the first feature film crewed and acted by gang members from five rival cliques. It showed how young people get drawn in to gang life and how hard it is to get out of it. For women they are likely to become sex workers unless they are attached to a gang member. The film, Ghost Killer, has been broadcast several times and we screen it regularly in slum areas leading to debate afterwards. WAYout has a dedicated women’s room which was an attempt to encourage women and provide a space where they do not have to compete for equipment and can have their opinions heard. It has proved very successful - the increase in the number of women who come in and stay all day was immediate and they are proving themselves very focused and capable. We run women’s filmmaking and music projects in the main office, in the women’s prison, in outreach groups in Freetown and in the provinces. We opened our studio in the male prison three years ago. It is the only form of rehabilitation the prison offers and 200 inmates turn out for sessions. Prison administration reports that inmates come out to take part who never normally leave their cell block. Guards feel that music has had such an impact on prisoner well being that we have been asked to run sessions in other parts of the country although we do not currently have funding to do that. Inmates are encouraged to follow up when they are released and come in to WAYout to learn. Through working with street youth, we tackle homelessness and the issues surrounding it. We provide crisis support in the form of food, shelter and a safe space off the streets, as well as rent grants. We offer positive activities, which lead to life changes. We tackle human rights issues through the projects we run – from FGM to mental health and persecution of street youth – which both increase members' understanding of their human rights and raise awareness around the issues to a wider audience. Through the above, we also address health issues – focusing on mental health, physical health, and women’s health. Our projects have education at their core, providing high-quality training opportunities to the most excluded, building their skills and confidence, and enabling some to return to more traditional education. And through all of this WAYout is working to address social and economic inequality – supporting street youth, sex workers, disadvantaged women, those with disabilities and mental health issues - to gain sustainable employment. We have demonstrated that, for women, having their own space has meant they can talk freely about the issues that affect them. Out of this freedom have come a documentary about FGM, a feature film about Ebola and teenage pregnancy, a short love story, a project supporting Ebola orphans and so on. This in turn has led to real outcomes for the women participating – both in terms of soft outcomes such as confidence and improved self-esteem, but also leading to actual employment opportunities. The Women’s Media Group has at its core the promotion of tolerance and equality for women. It is in Bundubu, near Bo, in the provinces. Many women in the provinces have little education, married early and live in abusive relationships. The law protects but culture doesn’t . These are the women and their communities we want to reach and train to have their own voices.