The Flavasum Trust

In the last few years young people have not had it easy. The right job is difficult to find, and education hasn’t always delivered. In disadvantaged communities. Some of the most marginalised young people become members of gangs to give them status, and carry a knife for an extra sense of security.

Reaching these young people and gaining their trust has been an uphill struggle for agencies and organisations trying to help them find a job or get them back into education.

The Flavasum Trust believes that the arts have an important role to play in this process. We think that disaffected young people respect creativity as much as the rest of society, and become just as engaged when ideas and issues relating to their lives are discussed with them.

This is the reason why the Trust was set up – to help individuals and organisations using the arts reach more young people, and create new opportunities where the most marginalised and disaffected can find ways to change their lives. Projects using music, theatre, dance, poetry, film, photography, visual art are just some of those we support, as well as research which can provide evidence that the arts indeed have the impact we claim for them.

Current work

Over the last year or so we have been promoting two plays, "Boy X" by Arc Theatre, and "It’s No Joke!" by The Comedy School, worked with Chickenshed on "The Crime of the Century", and organised an anti-knife music set at the Tottenham Carnival in June. In November, we staged the Flavasum Collection at the Unicorn Theatre, a unique presentation of the work of five theatre companies, as well as undertaking research into the impact of one of the plays in three towns in the Thames Valley.

Lowering the number of young people carrying knives is a key objective for the Trust, but that can never be enough. We must help them find new ways to live more positive lives, or face the social cost of a resentful minority who see no reason to change what they are doing.