Hackney charity celebrates 25 years of removing barriers to the arts for young people

The charity aims to remove barriers to the arts for young people. Photograph: Pheobe Sule

A charity dedicated to improving access to the arts for young people is marking its 25th anniversary.

Hackney Shed works with children and young people under the age of 26 across the borough, running workshops and delivering performances with the aim of removing barriers to the arts.

From Explore Sessions to the company’s Radio Play – available to listen to here – and the company’s half-term filmmaking project, Hackney Shed takes a multi-pronged approach to open up avenues for young people curious about the performing arts.

​Vicki Hambley, artistic and executive director, told the Citizen: “We want to remove barriers to accessing the arts and build the social inclusion skills and community cohesion developed when working in an inclusive arts environment.

“Our inclusive practice focuses on making all our activities accessible to a representative community of young people in Hackney and the surrounding boroughs, with a particular commitment to engaging young people with SEND, those who are neurodivergent, and young people from diverse and low-income backgrounds in Hackney”.

The charity was launched in response to a call-out from Chickenshed, a local theatre in Cockfosters, which was hoping to tackle the long waiting lists for its inclusive workshops.

Hackney Shed quickly became an entity in its own right and was registered as a charity in 2006.

The organisation also supports pilot projects and research and development. “We are always working with our community to respond to their needs and design new projects that are wanted”, Hambley added.

A performance by Hackney Shed participants. Photograph: Pheobe Sule

Approximately 30 per cent of Hackney Shed’s participants aged seven to 16 identify as disabled or neurodivergent, a figure which rises to more than 80 per cent in 16- to 25-year-olds.

To ensure everyone gets the most out of the programme, Hackney Shed works with groups of participants with varying needs and spotlights the talents of the group’s disabled and neurodivergent members.

To mark the anniversary, Hackney Shed has 25 runners taking part in this year’s Hackney Half. You can donate to the fundraising page here.

The charity will also be running an online auction, with more details to follow.

“We are consistently fundraising through traditional grants and foundation funding channels, but this is becoming more and more competitive in the current climate”, Hambley said.

“One of the biggest challenges to running inclusive work is the additional costs of disability.  These additional costs are often passed on to families. We include these costs in our budgets in order to remove the financial barriers for families – we have a much higher staff-to-participant ratio than a typical theatre workshop.

“We create visual aids, visual scripts and social stories for participants who may need them.  We hire venues that have multiple spaces we can use for sensory breaks and breakout spaces.  All these things are more expensive and tend to be where a lot of our funding goes”.

Speaking about where the money raised would go, Hambley said: “We are hoping to run an archive project and have a funding bid pending that would allow us to move forward with this.

​“Our Youth Panel is already looking through some of our archives to look at what young people were doing 25 years ago at Hackney Shed. We are also planning to have a celebration in the autumn where our community can come together to celebrate some of the amazing achievements we have had over the last 25 years. And have some birthday cake”.