ABOUT

Our children, teens need guidance and care to develop into whole, competent adults who can enjoy gainful employment and work constructively and collaboratively to positively enhance their livelihoods, communities and society as a whole. Families and school personnel alone cannot give our youth and young adults all that they need, to grow them into better citizens.

Youth Arts Movement Uganda is seeking to establish a stronghold of artistic individuals with proven creative and leadership potentials who will be tasked to improve lives of fellow young people including, children, Youth and young women between ages 10-25 years by imparting them with skills that can enhance their livelihoods and development of their communities. The movement shall serve as a frontier of skilled/talented artists that are committed to driving a positive socio-economic change into the communities they live and do business in.

The vision is to unite under one-umbrella artists; youth workers and stakeholders in the creative industry of Uganda, East Africa and Africa at Large for a common goal of enriching the lives of young people from marginalized communities through Arts and Education. The target shall be reached through direct outdoor, community activities that shall engage participants into the use of canvas painting, and screen-printing, jewellery making, digital media, creative writing and spoken word, poetry and public speaking, leadership ethics and entrepreneurship, Dance, music and cultural creativity.

At full-scale operation, Youth Arts Movement Uganda looks forward to operating Community Learning Centres in Four (4) major regions of the Country and alteast one (1) in each of the East African Countries. That shall act as free spaces where youth can benefit from after school activities in educational workshop series and creative arts training. We understand the power of creativity and how it can make a vital contribution to the achievement of the objectives that reconcile empowerment and development of young people.

MISSION STATEMENT:

The mission of Youth Arts Movement Uganda; is to ensure that majority of Ugandan children and youth from marginalized communities have access to real global opportunities and a platform where they can freely experience and explorer their creative abilities, attain proper education and leadership skills for their personal growth, social development and community involvement.

CORE OBJECTIVE

Is to launch a cross-cultural project that will link artists, youth workers, and stakeholders in the creative industry of Uganda, East Africa and the world at large into interactive and collaborative arts based activities that shall foster inventive skills and leadership development. Following this establishment, there shall be an annual regional Youth Arts Movement Festival, a stage that will allow young artists to freely exhibit and showcase their artworks through theatrical dance and music performances, poetry pieces, film, photography, art & design, creative writing and literature.

CORE VISION

The core Vision of YAMU; is to bring to the world’s attention the voices and issues of young people in our target areas that have been ignored and neglected, through the use of Arts as a mouthpiece and a medium through which the youths can positively and safely transmit their feelings towards the betterment of circumstances that they are victims to.

The essence is to teach young people how to confront day-to-day life challenges through the use of an inquiry approach to life. By an “inquiry” approach we mean one that includes the following steps:

• Determining the nature of the problem, the various components of which it is composed, and how these components interact and affect each other;
• Gathering information about the problem generated in the past;
• Creating a set of questions that can be answered through experimentation and further thought;
• Designing effective methods that lead to the successful gathering of information needed to answer important questions/solve particular problems;
• Taking time to reflect on the use of the entire process.

CORE PROGRAMS

The community centre is targeted to offer free after-school workshop series to members between the ages of 10-25 years. Our core programs include;

1.     Health Education and Sensitization 
" Omuvubuka Omuyonjo Health Campaign"

The mandate of this program is to provide key public health knowledge and information to our target participants that will aid them in making better healthy decisions for themselves, families and the community at large.  For example, Topics on proper general health and sanitation, diseases awareness, control and prevention, food and nutrition and drug abuse shall be addressed.

2.     Creative Arts and Digital Media

This program shall provide youth and children between ages 10-20 years with a nurturing learning environment featuring innovative arts and educational classes such as poetry, art and design, film & photography, computer literacy, Hip-hop, song-writing, and dance. (Generally visual and performing arts)

3.     Girls Program:

The Girl’s program provides teen girls and young women below the age of 20yrs with positive role models and mentors, educational facilities and resources that will allow them to become successful female leaders in their respective communities. To also standardize a leadership development strategy which fosters innovation, confidence, integrity and creative self-expression among teen girls.

4.     Entrepreneurship

This program economically empowers youth through the strategic development of revenue-generating activities. It fosters finance and business management, project planning, evaluation and monitoring. Capital Investment and saving culture among young people.

5.     International Volunteer program

The International Volunteer Program Promotes skills-sharing, cultural immersion, and international awareness of participants. This program offers volunteers the unique opportunity to make meaningful contributions to our local target communities.

6.     The Creative Lab.

Creative lab is a weekly exhibition space that offers a free platform where young people from the community can share, learn and exhibit their artistic skills through performances and showcases.  It’s a weekly community activity that shall feature art exhibitions, music and dance performances, poetry,

 Hip-hop and youth dialogue.

7. Art-reach Youth Camp

This is a 5 days outdoor activity that directly involves participants into mobile arts and educational workshops towards the youths in different communities across the country. Art-reach Youth Camp shall target to extend our artistic and educational skills to peers in rural areas. We believe through this activity, many lives are changed. And each village we plant a camp, we will make sure to establish a youth Arts Movement learning centre where local participants can continue to practice and enhance their newly acquired knowledge and skills.