Young Poets Changing The World

Why would a Music Hub, which is committed to providing musical opportunities for children and young people, start dabbling in poetry?

It’s not that Portsmouth Music Hub has run out of ideas, or that the staff have nothing better to do, quite the opposite, the award-winning team are busy developing new programmes, planning shows, composing music, visiting schools and inspiring thousands of local children and young people to pick up an instrument, to sing and take part in music-making.

However, since September 2018 Portsmouth Music Hub has been working hard to highlight a range of environmental issues that may have an impact on our planet, and poetry has played its part.

Portsmouth Music Hub’s One Worldcampaign harnesses the power of music and the arts to engage children and young people, to challenge their thinking and inspire them to change behaviours. The message is simple; how we interact with our environment and how we sustain our planet’s precious resources really will shape our future, and the future of generations to come.

Music lies at the heart of One World, but the campaign has included art competitions, short films, story-telling in schools and an extensive use of web-based media, and on Thursday 23 May, at a special prize-giving ceremony at Milton Park Primary School in Portsmouth, poetry was in the spotlight. Children and young people of all ages put pen to paper, fingers to keyboards, and described their feelings for the environment. Deforestation, ocean pollution and recycling plastics were just some of the many aspects of environmental awareness on display.

Sue Beckett, CEO of Portsmouth Music Hub who attended the prize-giving, said: “Creativity knows no bounds and from the very start of our One Worldcampaign we wanted to ensure that we communicated an environmental message utilising as many art forms as possible. Tapping into the creativity of young minds with music, words and art, has fired up the imagination of children and young people, engaged a wider community of people and made the messages of One World far more compelling and, we hope, enduring.”

To find out more about One World visit www.portsmouthmusichub.org