A Creative Careers Fair for Young People at Midlands Art Centre

The region’s leading training provider for the creative and cultural industries, Creative Alliance, are producing Creative Minds for young people, their parent and educators. Free to attend on Saturday 24 September at Midlands Arts Centre from 1.30- 3.30pm, Creative Minds is an opportunity to find out what jobs, apprenticeships, volunteering opportunities and participation programmes Greater Birmingham’s creative and cultural organisations are offering.

B Music, Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Legacy Centre, MAC, Punch and The Rep are just some of the organisations who will be there to share their opportunities.

They’ll be joined by a number of successful Birmingham based artists and creatives including Andrew Lindo, DJ Bigoss, Maryam Wahid, Shekinah Yuhannah and Zimbo. They all feature in ‘Home Grown’, an on-line creative careers education programme that features successful creatives from diverse backgrounds, abilities and experiences who all call Birmingham their home.

People attending Creative Minds on 24 September will have the opportunity to talk with the artists, creatives and representatives from the creative and cultural organisations about the jobs people do, the skills people need and the routes people take into getting sustainable careers in one of the fastest growing sectors of the region’s economy.

The Creative Careers Fair is being organised by Khadija Bhayat with funding and support provided by Gen22, the legacy programme of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Khadija joined Creative Alliance on a Kickstart placement to help unemployed young people into employment. Khadija explains why she took the initiative to organise this event: “I have organised this event to make it more accessible for young people, particularly those from ethnic minorities, to work in the creative industries so that it is more representative of Birmingham and also to help creatives from Birmingham connect.”

Khadija is being supported by Simeon Moore aka Zimbo and director of MindsEye Development CIC. This is an organisation that mentors and supports young people into work and learning opportunities.

Simeon Moore went on to say: “Through my work in supporting young people, I have seen a great disconnection between the young people within the city and its creative business and organisations. We have been developing strategies to help diversify the workforce of the creative industries over the next 10 years and connecting Birmingham’s largest creative organisations with the young people from communities across the city. This is our first step in the right direction.”

The reason so many employers are attending is because it’s the only collective creative careers fair happening this year in Birmingham and it aims to attract a very broad cross section of Birmingham’s communities to it.

Deborah Kermode, Chief Executive and Artistic Director at mac said: “In these challenging times, it’s vital that there remains high quality learning provision for young people through the potential of apprenticeships, volunteering, work experience and other Learning and Participation programmes. It’s enormously important that employers recognise this value and how it can hugely enrich their workforce.  Creative Alliance is a leader in the arts and creative industries sector, and we are proud to have a long association with them, benefiting positively from our shared apprentices.”

Doors open at 1.00pm and the Careers Fair starts at 1.30pm.

To tell us you’re coming please register here

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