Create Live! - Create's award-winning pandemic response

CREATE LIVE! BRINGS PARTICIPANTS TOGETHER ON ZOOM FOR HIGH QUALITY, LIVE, INTERACTIVE, CREATIVE WORKSHOPS.

When the pandemic first struck, we overhauled our whole way of working in just 14 days. Following a swift period of consultation, we took our venue-based workshops online to enable us to reach participants who were facing months of unrelenting isolation, loneliness and hardship. Create Live! our online workshops platform was born.

It was an unprecedented challenge for the Create team, but we knew how important creativity would be for the wellbeing of the people we work with during this fraught time. Create Live! enabled us to continue delivering projects that could connect, empower, inspire, upskill and enhance the wellbeing of our participants at a time of intense need.

“It has probably been the highlight of my quarantine. I enjoyed meeting new people. In quarantine, I don’t normally get to see my friends.”
PARTICIPANT

Using funding provided by Arts Council England, we provided training to our professional artists so they could deliver meaningful, appropriate workshops online. We helped to upskill our partner organisations in this new way of working and built relationships with new services and community partners to reach increasing numbers of the most vulnerable children and adults.

During 2020/21, we delivered more workshops across the UK than ever before. We are delighted that this work was recognised with the Charity Times Digital Transformation of the Year award in September 2021.

We continue to run projects online via Create Live! alongside our in-venue work – enabling us to continue reaching participants who might previously have been unable to take part.