How can we reduce youth voice tokenism in cultural organisations? 

31 March 2025

On the 11th February 2025 we held an in-person and online hybrid Masterclass, hosted by Barakat Omomayowa. Barakat is an architectural designer and cultural curator working across architecture, arts, and heritage, focusing on sustainability, education, and social justice. Based in London, her practice addresses global challenges like textile waste, fostering meaningful dialogue and creating transformative community experiences. In 2023, Barakat was one of the Young Advisors who consulted on AND’s internal Youth Voice approach & strategy.

The Masterclass consisted of a panel discussion, hosted by Barakat alongside speakers:

• Sid Boyer (Producer, Rising Arts Agency) 

• Kit Miles (Talent & Artist Development, Southbank Centre) 

The event also included a zine-making workshop run by:

• Jordanne Case - online (a London based creative with an interest in shaping community arts engagement & marketing, who was also a Young Advisor for AND’s stratergy) 

• Django Pinter – in person (multidisciplinary creative and artist)

This Masterclass gave us the opportunity to: 

• Learn the core concepts of youth voice and tokenism 

• Understand effective models of youth voice within cultural organisations 

• Hear from industry experts in the field and young people’s lived experiences 

• Reflect upon your aspirations for youth voice in the work you do 

• Share and learn from other culture workers 

• Meet and network with like-minded peers 

Main discussion points in the event

Barakat kicked of the discussion with a question to Sid: How can we renumerate and acknowledge lived experience? What followed was an interesting and lively conversation, with Sid explaining how Rising Arts treat lived experiences as something that is now just personal, but also as something that has value. They have implemented a Restorative Rest Fee into their contracts when asking Young People to work on anything that uses their lived experiences. This fee can go towards whatever gives them a feeling of rest and restoration; therapy, a nice meal, not having to take that extra shift. Sharing personal lived experiences is emotional work, so these extra fees give the young people that opportunity to have a treat. If an organisation will benefit financially off the back of a young person’s story and experiences, then that young person deserves to be properly renumerated.

During the A New Direction’s Youth Voice consultation process Barakat coined the term ‘Extractavism’ – when an organisation asks for young people’s experiences and ideas, and once the work is done, they have no time and space for that young person anymore. This was reflected on. How can we make sure Young People feel connected and part of an organisation they have supported in some way, even after a programme has finished?

Another question Barakat posed was: How can we include youth voice in the structures we are already working within? Kit answered that we need to start by acknowledging the weaknesses we have, and with that we have a duty to find experts, for example, take a look at the staff you already have, some of those are probably young people themselves. Many organisations have support networks for their staff, there is an opportunity here to create ‘Youth Network’s for internal staff, and find out from them how the organisation could include youth voice better within their structures.

After the initial questions from Barakat, there was time for a short Q & A from the audience, which included a question of how to find young people to participate if you as the organisation don’t ‘look right’? The main takeaway from this is to go to places that young people go to like schools and GP surgeries. Don’t rely on online recruitment.

We then had a short break, after which the online participants attended an online zine-making workshop with Jordanne, and those in the room created physical zines with Django. The zines aim was to creatively respond to the panel discussion and ideas about reducing tokenism in youth voice. The audience were encouraged to approach their zines as:

• A manifesto

• An intuitive, process-led response to the ideas shared today

• A resource to share with your team

• An archive of what you have learnt

Barakat Omomayowa's 5 top take-aways from the Masterclass:

1. Factor rest into EVERYTHING. Sid shared with us the power of making rest a part of the work, and explained the methods they use at Rising Arts Agency. For example, taking the month of August off in order to grow and develop and rest as a team.
2. It's important to remember and safeguard your young people. Within the conversation of tokenism, often a young person with lived experience might be asked to share those stories. Acknowledging and remunerating accordingly is important to allow them enough space and freedom to recalibrate after these interactions/experiences.
3. Transparency! Transparency! Transparency! Young people are smarter than we often give them credit for - A successful interaction therefore is built on honesty, trust and transparency. One cannot be without the others. Be honest about your role and theirs, limitations and constraints imposed by the company or wider institutions upfront – and where to focus energy if they feel that change must be made.
4. Legacy. When working with young people, make sure to invest in them long term, not limited to a financial relationship but checking in, sharing access to resources, and outsourcing them to other opportunities. Show them that you care for and value them even once the ‘program’ is over.
5. Be open about ways to progress within the particular institution or business but also read the room! In some cases, participants may only be interested in their particular program – it's important to respect the idea that careers are not always linear and to respect and validate any reason for participation

Jordanne Case's take-aways:

• Transparency is really important- not just within programmes itself but how events are planned, the equipment involved, the space and settings etc. Kit’s example of a programme that could have benefited from having transparency reinforced the idea that youth voice needs to be implemented from the start.

• More organisations need to be talking about a restorative rest fee (yes to Rising Arts Agency). Points to consider – how do you reimburse for emotional labour? Can this really be compensated for well?

• A new word in my dictionary: ‘extractavism’, where organisations can sometimes be guilty of taking a lot of personal information from young people over a couple of months as part of a project, then abruptly ending the project. Where is the duty of care towards the individuals, and how can you further support them after a project finishes?

Django Pinter's take-aways:

• Project legacy and proper remuneration are both crucial in reducing tokenism in youth voice projects

• Artists and organisations have as much power as funding bodies (if not more!) when it comes to defining best practice and the criteria for successful youth voice

• We need more thinking in how youth voice best practice might change across different age groups – in particular younger children

Resources

Shared during the panel discussion from Sid and Kit;

1. Rising Arts Agency’s OnBoard programme: If you're ready to refresh, decolonise, and future-proof your board, get in touch to chat about recruiting two young people into your organisation's governance. This link recaps purpose, training and fees for the work.
2. The Rising Approach to Caring Working Cultures: This 10 hour training (split across 4 Wednesdays in May) supports leaders, strategic decision makers and HR teams to rethink their organisations relationship with care. During this 4-week training we'll explore how to embed care in every phase of the employee journey - from access and recruitment to generative conflict and policies made for people.
3. Work with the Rising Arts Agency: We support 150 creatives who are underrepresented in the sector and under 30, from muralists, to consultants, facilitators, keynote speakers, producers, filmmakers, change-makers or something else entirely. Commission or recruit a creative to make something incredible, mentor your leaders or change your ways of thinking.
4. Power in partnerships: Want to explore the unspoken hierarchies of cultural institutions and communities? Read their zine that summarises their year long research project funded and by King's College London. (Or listen to the podcast)
5. Southbank Centre’s Reframe and Technical Academy Programmes.

Actions for after

Barakat says:

“I’d like to pose a question to you now – to help you interrogate your own practice and help ground and remind you of the space that we created. I invite you to look back on your own experiences and respond to this question investigatively.

‘How can we amplify and resource Young people without setting them up to fail?’

A reminder that the word ‘young’ is not age exclusive and can also refer to the stage you are at in your career. What would younger you have wanted / needed to get to where you are now?”