Your Heritage, Your Future

Through a partnership of Norfolk Museums Service and YMCA Leicestershire, the Your Heritage, Your Future project will encourage young people aged 16-25, including those with complex needs, to engage with their local heritage. Based on the success of the Kick The Dust youth engagement project in Norfolk and Leicestershire, Your Heritage, Your Future will build on the learning from Kick The Dust to create new opportunities for young people to engage with arts and heritage across the East of England and East Midlands  and support local museums to develop youth engagement programmes. The project will be aimed at young people who do not currently see heritage as relevant to their lives, including those struggling with their mental health, those with are not in education, employment, or training, and  those involved with the Youth Justice System and Looked after Children and Care Leavers.

Your Heritage Your Future will recruit museums & heritage organisations in the East Midlands and East of England to work in a supported programme with young people through a tiered progression route according to both the museums & young people’s abilities & expertise, including offering paid traineeships. Through involvement with this project, museums will be able to significantly improve their youth engagement practice & demonstrate their relevance to young people, including from the most challenging backgrounds and diversify their workforce. Young people will also gain transferable skills & accreditations from experiencing a supportive work environment which they can use in a career in heritage or elsewhere.

Our project could not happen without the generous support of The National Lottery Heritage Fund or Lottery Players, we thank them for the opportunities this project offers and for making our project possible. You can find out more about all the fantastic work The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports at www.heritagefund.org.uk