New NDotM Video

We have a new video! It includes interviews with some of the people New Deal of the Mind have placed into jobs with London Metropolitan Archives. Please do take a look.

Our thanks to Jenna Jovi who not only did a great job filming, producing and editing the piece, but also turned it around very quickly.

Karen Freyer | Friday, 9th July, 2010 at 11:26 am | Blog, News | No comment


A creative alternative to the dole

Our founder, Martin Bright, wrote in Sunday’s Observer about how New Deal of the Mind is trying to ease fears of another lost generation. In the article, Martin describes how we should harness the potential of Britain’s creative industries (film, music and the performing arts, as well as new forms of innovation such as software design and social media). This should take its lead from the cultural projects of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, which put thousands back to work on artistic and literary projects. Although some of the works produced were mediocre, among the alumni of the scheme were painters Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, and writers Saul Bellow, John Cheever and Ralph Ellison.

New Deal of the Mind is now just over a year old and some of Martin’s ideas and now in practice. New Deal of the Mind has created jobs for just under 700 unemployed young adults in cultural institutions around the country. We’re also diversifying the demographic of people who are able to work in the arts. By recruiting from the long-term unemployed we are tackling its domination by privileged people who can afford to work on free internships. Generations of well-meaning arts quangocrats have attempted to crack this so-called “Samantha syndrome”. Our recruitment days have enabled organisations to interview people who would have previously never dared think they could work in these institutions.

Karen Freyer | Monday, 5th July, 2010 at 10:19 am | Blog, News | No comment


Just under 700 creative jobs created

It’s clear from our chairman, Richard Greer’s blog just how impressed he was with the training courses we’re running with GOALS for young people who’ve just started their placements through NDotM.

“There were about 20 young people there, all of whom had come through the Jobcentres. I guess most of them came from disadvantaged backgrounds; young people for whom the possibility of getting any employment was bleak, even before they could begin finding something that might give them a chance of doing what they wanted to do. The experience of listening to them talk about their aspirations, and the hurdles they faced, but which they were determined to overcome, just made it clear how important is the task of NDotM. It was pretty inspiring.”

What’s equally impressive is that this is the realisation of NDotM’s mission – to nurture and support young people entering the arts and creative sector. We know how hard it is for people to access a jobs market world where entry level vacancies are rarely advertised and too often you need the connections and the financial support to work for nothing as an intern in the hope that a real job comes out of that. That was borne out in the report we published a couple of months ago Creative Survival in Hard Times.

Just over half the 180 jobs with various arts and cultural institutions across London have been filled and we expect the rest to be in place within the next couple of weeks. Sixteen local people have started work with Stratford Circus and NewVIc in East London and 10 more have been taken on by the London Metropolitan Archive to work on digitising archive material. More than 40 people are beginning their placements with the Notting Hill Mas Band Association while others are working in theatre, dance, production and design jobs across the capital. Some of them you can see and hear on the website and we’ll be updating their progress with online and video diaries.

Meanwhile, we are delighted that a further 500 jobs have been created nationally, funded by government and NDotM is working with a range of partners including  PANDA in Manchester and the North West, Brighton & Hove and the East of England.

Added to the other people already in their jobs, this means that about a thousand young people now have the chance to experience work in the arts, learning a whole host of skills which we hope will set them on a path to their chosen careers in the creative sector. This is opening up a wealth of opportunity for them, and is the start of shoring up the next generation of creative talent that is so vital to the country’s economic, social and cultural future.

Jo Phillips | Friday, 2nd July, 2010 at 10:33 am | Blog, News | No comment


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