The Culture Quarter Programme Blog

CQP Phase 3 Celebration Event

By CQP Administrator Wednesday October 5, 2011

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Last week an event was held at the Royal Opera House to celebrate the end of the third phase of the Culture Quarter Programme. A total of 105 young people have now taken part in the programme over the last 18 months, and this was a chance to mark the achievements of the 36 young people who made up the third CQP cohort.

Friends, family, managers, colleagues and NVQ assessors were in attendance to see Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, give a stirring speech to highlight the group’s many achievements and wish all 36 CQP members the very best of luck for their future careers.

Tony talked about how impressed he had been by the Digital Domesday project which saw the CQP members curating and exhibiting previously unseen archive material from their respective organisations and handed each programme member the NVQ certificates they’ve been working so hard towards.

Tony also proudly announced that 50% of those in the third cohort have already found a new job to go onto as a result of being on CQP, with another 6% moving into higher education. A fantastic result for so many to have found work so soon after leaving the programme and this number is sure to increase in the coming months.

Tony gave a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported the programme over the last 18 months – a huge number of people and organisations without whom the programme just wouldn’t have been possible.

Although the government funding from the Future Jobs Fund has ended, the CQP partner organisations are continuing to work together to try and find a way in which they can build on the success of the project and establish a CQP Phase 4 in 2012. Watch this space for more info…

Photos by Ufuoma Akpotaire

CQP and Digital Domesday exhibition online and at St Martin-in-the-Fields

By CQP Administrator Wednesday September 7, 2011

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CQP and Digital Domesday exhibition online and at St Martin-in-the-Fields

The Culture Quarter Programme has collaborated with the innovative Digital Domesday Project to make a selection of previously unseen material from the archives of some of London’s best known cultural venues and arts organisations available online. The exhibition is also on display in St Martin’s Hall in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square and is open to the public between Tuesday, 6 September and Friday, 9 September.

The exhibition has been put together by the 36 members of the third cohort of the Culture Quarter Programme (CQP). The CQP is a pilot project offering young people who were formerly unemployed the chance to gain six months paid work at a range of creative and cultural organisations. The aim of the Programme is to equip the participants with the skills and work experience needed to start a career in the arts.

As well as being offered a bespoke package of work based training, each cohort has been encouraged to work together on their own creative project involving all 36 of their CQP colleagues. The purpose of the creative project is to allow participants to demonstrate their creative and artistic flair, and gain experience in managing their own projects.

The third cohort’s creative project is based on the Digital Domesday Project, a national initiative led by one of the CQP partner organisations, New Deal of the Mind. The project creates employment opportunities in arts and heritage organisations with an emphasis on digitising cultural archives that are not currently publically accessible. Inspired by the oral history elements of Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration, which produced an oral history of the last living slaves in the US, the Digital Domesday Project provides work and training that produces a lasting cultural legacy.

The Culture Quarter Programme participants were set the challenge of contributing to the Digital Domesday initiative by uncovering archive material related to their host organisation, and making this available online. This exhibition and slideshow invite you to share a selection of their exciting discoveries, and celebrate the extraordinary material which they have uncovered.

For a fuller look at some of the images digitsed by the CQP members visit:

Royal Opera House: James McDougall Photographic Collection

Digital ’60s: Digitising a Decade of Defining History at the National Portrait Gallery

New Deal of the Mind: the Digital Domesday Project

CQP Project Review published

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Introduction to the Review by Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House I am hugely proud of our involvement in the Culture Quarter Programme. We felt strongly that the Royal Opera House should play a part in addressing youth unemployment and we welcomed the Future Jobs Fund as a way of minimising the [...]

CQP Phase 3 begins!

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We were absolutely thrilled today to welcome another 36 young people to the Culture Quarter Programme and launch a third Phase of the CQP! This means over the last year we have created 105 jobs for previously unemployed young people at some of the most high profile arts and cultural venues in London. Within this [...]

CQP Members visit the House of Commons to meet with Ministers

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In what has turned out to be a very exciting and busy week for the Culture Quarter Programme, we were delighted to attend a lunchtime reception at the House of Commons yesterday to meet with some MPs and Ministers to discuss the CQP and Future Jobs Fund to raise awareness about just how beneficial the CQP [...]

Celebrating the end of CQP Phase 2

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It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already but this week sadly marked the end of the second phase of the Culture Quarter Programme! To celebrate the group’s many achievements and wish all 36 of them the best of luck for the future we held a Celebration Event in the Linbury Studio Theatre at [...]