05
June
2015
|
14:10
Europe/London

Magna Carta “LiberTeas” on Sunday June 14

Young people are invited to drop in and get creative, try out the Soapbox and Speech Bubbles, design T-Shirts and find out about ‘Find Your Voice’ - a Magna Carta inspired project for Oxfordshire youngsters, with arts organisations, Oxfordshire County Council’s libraries and the Houses of Parliament.

To have your say and find out how to take part in this exciting project, pop along to the Story Museum in Oxford on Sunday 14th June from 2pm to 4pm at “Liberteas” for tea and cake.

Find Your Voice is an exciting and innovative arts project taking place in 2015 throughout Oxfordshire County Council’s libraries to help those aged 13 to 21 become more active citizens.

800th anniversary

The council’s library service successfully bid for £96,000 from Arts Council England to help fund the project.

Throughout the project, Oxfordshire youngsters will be given the chance to debate with politicians and to visit the Houses of Parliament in 2015 – a year which marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta and the origins of democracy.

Groups of young people will be writing, designing exhibitions, creating musical soundscapes, films and digital art, drama and dance during six to ten week projects with libraries throughout the year.

Library visitors themselves will be treated to a wide range of promenade theatre, soap box speeches, dance, puppetry, soundscapes and exhibitions all created by young people to express their identities, thoughts and opinions about the big issues of the day

Find Your Voice is delivered in partnership with the Houses of Parliament as part of Parliament in the Making and young people from all backgrounds will be offered the opportunity to visit parliament during the project.

Young people from all backgrounds will be taking part. Arts organisations involved in the project include Oxford Contemporary Music, Pegasus Theatre, First Story and The Story Museum.

Jillian Southwell, Head of Oxfordshire County Council’s Library Service, said: “Find Your Voice is part of an initiative to use libraries as cultural venues in addition to all of the things for which they are already known and loved. We hope this will be a new way of attracting young people in to libraries.

“We hope that this groundbreaking project will become a national template for libraries working with arts and cultural organisations and young people.”

Parliament in the making

Parliament in the Making, the Houses of Parliament’s public programme, commemorates two important anniversaries in 2015: 750 years since the Simon de Montfort parliament (20 January 1265) and 800 years since the sealing of Magna Carta (15 June 1215).

Parliament in the Making, is managed by the Public Engagement and Outreach Group within the House of Commons Department of Information Services. The team can be contacted via email: parliamentinthemaking@parliament.uk