Our Young Vic Young Associates take a trip to Sweden

Daniel Harrison, the Young Vic's Taking Part and Administration Assistant tells us about the Young Associates' trip to Sweden. 

At the Young Vic we have four Young Associates on our team; Rassin in Press & Marketing, Nassy in Producing, Scarlet in Production and Adrian in Taking Part. These four young people were recruited from our surrounding borough of Southwark, and are cutting their teeth and learning the ropes here on The Cut at "the best theatre in London". Rassin, Nassy, Scarlet and Adrian may have long careers in the arts ahead of them but most importantly, our aim is to arm them with transferable skills for whatever the future may hold.

The Young Vic Young Associates scheme is generously funded by Southwark Council, Berkeley Homes, The Creative Employment Programme and Karl-Johan Persson, the CEO and President of fashion company H&M – we are all immensely grateful for their involvement in the scheme. One of the funders, Karl-Johan Persson, kindly invited us to H&M's headquarters in Stockholm to meet him, so Rassin, Nassy, Adrian, Sharon (our Participation Projects Manager) and I set off to Sweden to say thank you, personally.

In Stockholm we were met by Beatrice Bondy, a member of the Young Vic’s Development Board, friend of Karl-Johan, and sister of Young Vic International Associate Luc Bondy, who showed us the sights and sounds of the city. We tucked into a traditional fish supper, took a boat to an island and wandered about the streets of Stockholm in glorious Swedish sunshine. Huge thanks to Beatrice for her excellent hospitality.

 

Sandwiched between our meeting with Karl-Johan we visited arts venues which share the Young Vic’s ethos of inclusion and outreach. Fryshuset is the world’s largest youth centre, offering arts and sports projects for young people, ranging from preventative initiatives for those at risk of social exclusion, basketball tournaments and skateboard parks to music concerts and theatre performances. It was inspiring to see so much incredible work and this reenergised us in terms of understanding just why we do the work we do at the Young Vic.

Uppsala Theatre, in Sweden’s fourth city, is an old friend of ours. They came to visit the Young Vic last December. It was great to reconnect with our colleagues in Uppsala, and see first-hand the community and education projects that they run.

Our time in Stockholm and Uppsala was brief but great. Two brilliant cities with five brilliant colleagues, visiting three brilliant venues and with one brilliant host. All in all, brilliant - or in Swedish, lysande!

To find out more about Taking Part, visit www.youngvic.org/taking-part