Discover Young Hackney 2008
Discover Young Hackney ‘08 was a festival shaped by young people for young people: input from Hackney’s youth population was fundamental to the success of this year’s arts and culture celebration.
The festival followed on from the significant achievements of the 2007 event. With its focus set on encouraging people aged 11 to 19 to try out new things, the programme was designed to offer something for everyone. During the month of February, there were free events and workshops in art, dance, music, film, drama, media and fashion design. The mix of activities was wide-ranging and also celebrated diversity.
Like last year, Discover Young Hackney was developed by Hackney Council’s Cultural Development Team in partnership with Hackney’s Youth Arts Cluster. But, a major innovation for 2008 was the introduction of cultural ambassadors – a team of 30 young people who became the eyes, ears and voice of the festival. It was an exciting development for the event. The young team added extra credibility to the programme and delivered a significant contribution to the success of the festival as a whole.
A detailed evaluation of the festival was undertaken. Headlines from the evaluation include:
- 2,036 young people took part
- 30 young people signed up as cultural ambassadors
- 123 artists were involved
- 20 partners from the arts and cultural activities delivered projects
- 75% of participants were new to the activity they took part in
- 60% of surveyed participants said that they would definitely like to take part in more cultural events like the one they experienced
- 56% of surveyed participants described the event they took part in as excellent / 39.5% said their event was good.
Download the 
Looking back at Discover Young Hackney (1.98MB)
The Full Evaluation Report will be available on this page soon.
The festival was documented in a 3 minute film produced by local filmmakers Jenny Dobbs and Samuel Awosoga to celebrate the positive achievements of everyone who took part in the festival. You can view a short clip from the film here
Page updated: 25 Jun 2008
Looking Back at Discover Young Hackney (1.98MB)