Smashing the Creative Jam!

Space Youth Services digital marketing apprentice Maddie Aylward from Exeter was thrilled to be in the winning team at this year’s International Creative Jam in Nantes.

Her team designed the top-rated prototype project addressing issues faced by young people in the Atlantic European area.

The three-day Jam was organised by the Atlantic Youth Creative Hub (AYCH), an initiative that supports and promotes creativity and entrepreneurship among young people in the UK, France, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.

Participants, mentors, experts and partners spanning more than 20 different nationalities came together in the Ecole de Design de Nantes Atlantique for the Jam, with its theme of ‘BAM - impacts on the sustainable future’. Each of the ten groups was given a topic to brainstorm and formulate.

Maddie, whose team comprised Lisa, Huiling, Francisco, Icia, Anthía and Rubén plus mentor Kay Humberstone, explained: “My group looked at the topic of what a social frontier in a city is and how it can be overcome.

“Our solution was a virtual reality game that allows young people to walk in other people’s shoes and experience situations from their viewpoint, helping them understand the lack of integration of minorities in societies. We were of course delighted to win, but also in awe of all the brilliant ideas that other groups came up with.”

Funded by Interreg Atlantic Area, the Creative Jam is a great way of helping young people to boost skills and share ideas, encouraging them to work with people from different countries in a shared mission to think of solutions to help develop new approaches and interventions in support services for young people across the Atlantic space.

Maddie added: “This was an amazing opportunity to spend time with young people from different countries and to be able to collaborate creatively with them.”

Space Youth Services, which delivers professional youth work, community projects and other services in Devon, is the UK partner of AYCH. As such, it provides an informal learning course to help young people across the county develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

Space works collaboratively with the other AYCH partners: the Municipality of Santo Tirso, Portugal;  École de Design de Nantes Atlantique, France; Fundación Galicia Europa, Spain; Cámara de Comercio de Santiago de Compostela, Spain; IMI, Ireland; Incubo Alto Minho, Portugal; and Vida Láctea, Spain, to widen opportunities within the Atlantic area.