Every week at Create is an exciting mix of delivering current projects and working with community partners, participants and our professional artists to plan projects for the future. But this week was particularly exciting as we found out our creative:connection programme has been shortlisted for the Charity Awards’ prestigious Arts, Culture and Heritage Award.
The Charity Awards is the charity sector’s longest-running, biggest and best-known awards ceremony. Charities are judged by an independent panel of charity leaders as having demonstrated outstanding best practice which other organisations can learn from across 10 categories. The category winners, plus the recipients of the Overall Award for Excellence and the Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement, will be announced at a black tie dinner on 8 June, held in the grounds of the Tower of London.
Julian Chislett, Chief Executive of Civil Society Media, which organises the Charity Awards, congratulated all the shortlisted charities on making the highly-coveted shortlist: “The standard of entries this year was incredible, and the charities we shortlist remain a constant inspiration to all of us. Our rigorous judging process singles out those charities with the most innovative ideas and the most inspirational approaches to delivering maximum impact.”
Our creative:connection programme brings school pupils with and without disabilities together to make collaborative art. Working with our professional artists, young people across England, from Cumbria to Kent, have made visual art, music, film and more whilst building shared understanding and developing confidence and communication skills.
This is the fourth time Create has been shortlisted for a prestigious award in the last 12 months. In November we won the Children & Young People Now “Arts and Culture Award” and earlier in 2016 we were shortlisted for both The Third Sector and Charity Times Charity of the Year awards.
The outcomes of our projects for the participants are the greatest reward we can receive for our work. But winning and being shortlisted for these awards is fantastic recognition of the hard-work and success of our committed team of artists, staff, community partners and the funders who make our work possible, and confirms Create’s position as the UK’s leading charity for empowering lives through the creative arts.
Nicky Goulder, Founding Chief Executive