A panel of 29 young people from across the Highlands, who have been selected to promote the arts and represent Eden Court Theatre within their local communities, met this week for the first time. School pupils from as far afield as Thurso, Lochaber and Plockton travelled to Eden Court for the launch day of the brand new Eden Court CREATIVE Ambassadors scheme.

The newly announced Ambassadors discussed their plans for the new scheme, met the CREATIVE team and even managed to squeeze in a matinee performance of The Haunting, a large-scale stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ghost stories.

The CREATIVE Ambassadors scheme gives young people the opportunity to play their part in how Eden Court serves its younger audiences, as well as receiving a range of benefits such as free tickets to selected performances, meetings with cast and crew of shows and an exclusive film screening at Eden Court Cinema chosen by members of the group.

Young people were invited to apply for the scheme in September, outlining how they could contribute to their local area through the arts and how they would like to become more involved in Eden Court’s activities. Successful applicants will hold their post for one year, with new applications opening in Autumn 2013.

Three of the Ambassadors will also be selected to take part in the CREATIVE Mentorship programme. This will allow the selected young people to plan and execute their own creative project, with the help of the staff and resources at the theatre. This could range from writing a play to developing a musical piece for performance, or curating an exhibition of artwork from their school or local area.

The new Ambassadors said: We’re really excited to begin promoting the arts in our local area and becoming more involved with Eden Court. This is such a great opportunity to connect with the theatre and develop our individual interests in the arts – we can’t wait to get started!

Eden Court CREATIVE Manager, Kati Kozikowska, said: We’re very excited to announce our first ever group of CREATIVE Ambassadors. Eden Court has always valued the input of young people into the way it serves the Highlands and this scheme is a structured, proactive way for us to forge partnerships with young adults and the areas they live in throughout the region.

As Ambassadors, they will not only help Eden Court to engage with the community and invite people to get more involved in the arts, but they’ll gain excellent experience in the arts industry and a strong boost to their CVs.

Throughout the course of the year there will be lots for the young Ambassadors to get involved with. The organisers of the Happyness Comedy Festival have already asked for their help in promoting a particular aspect of their festival next year, Class Clowns. This exciting new competition is for secondary school pupils throughout the Highlands and is, in short, a search for the comedy star of the future. It will involve workshops from well known comics, a comedy competition held at Eden Court, a national comedy competition staged in Edinburgh and the winner will get a weekend at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

All schools in the Highlands are being encouraged to take part and each school will be asked to select a winner to represent their school in the next stage of the competition but how they make this choice is up to them. Information packs detailing how the whole scheme works will be issued to every secondary school in the Highlands soon and it’s hoped that the new Eden Court CREATIVE Young Ambassadors will play a vital role in getting their schools involved in this exciting new project.

For more information about the Ambassadors scheme and to keep up to date with their blogs and activities, visit www.eden-court.co.uk/activities/ambassadors.

Source: Eden Court