5 films by #filmmaker Matthew Kowalczuk from Apples and Eyes project for 14 - 18 year olds in #Brighton

watch 5 contrasting short videos shot and edited by Matt Kowalczuk with sound by Sarah Sayeed at #ACE funded summer school in local #orchard

Flower of this purple dye,

Hit with Cupid's archery,

Sink in apple of his eye – Oberon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 3 scene 2

The five films are - first, a longer one that reflects the sense of summer heat in the orchard with images and sounds from the event. Then June's film Champignons with her thoughts on being in the natural world, Shaliya's film Innerscape featuring her poem, Talk with Luca about the cultural differences he notices between England and Italy ( his mum is Italian and they visit Italy regularly) and finally Billy May's short film with her poem Magic.

The four day Arts Council funded summer school for young people was held in Racehill Community Orchard in #Whitehawk area of #Brighton from August 31 - September 3rd this year.

There were 4 facilitators, 7 participants and two youth leaders from Trust for Developing Communities. #BrightonPermaculture enabled the course to happen by allowing us to use the orchard on Racehill.

Please read the extremely upbeat feedback from Caroline Vitta, youth leader at TDC -

The project was brilliant – we saw lots of positive growth in the group’s confidence and they all reported back that they had enjoyed the sessions with several requests to do a similar project again. The facilitators did an amazing job at supporting the group and bringing them all out of their comfort zones. The message throughout the 4 days seemed clearly that being yourself is ok and this seemed to hit home with the group.

Apples and Eyes was quite a break away from our usual youth work at TDC but upon meeting Mary Chater and Tonya Easter I had a gut feeling that we should just try to run it and it was absolutely the right decision. It worked better than I ever could have imagined.

The team seemed flexible and were able to adapt the workshops to meet the needs and interests of the group

Beautiful setting of the Racehill Community Orchard was great for the young people - they fed back that they had enjoyed being outside.

The young people were supportive of each other and worked well together sharing ideas and encouraging each other

It was a lovely touch at the end to give everyone presents based on what the facilitators had observed are their interests over the project -made the young people feel heard and seen.

We didn’t hit the target of 16 young people - 11 were signed up and 7 managed to stay the full course.

Reasons for non attendance were:

2 said it clashed with induction sessions at college

1 was going to come from Moulsecoomb and decided it was too far to travel for a 10 am start

1 dropped out due to a family bereavement but had really enjoyed the first day

It’s hard to think of what I would change – maybe having the workshops in the middle of the summer holidays might have worked as some young people were probably getting ready for school/college – although this might have also clashed with other summer holiday activities on offer – not much tends to be offered after the bank holiday.

I might possibly lower the ages to 13 but it was nice to have a project aimed at older young people - often young people start dropping out of youth services around 16 years so great to have a project that more mature young people feel is for them.

Apples and Eyes project - images and sounds from 4 days in the orchard

June's poem - Champignons

Innerspace - Shaliya's poem

Luca Talks - Luca on differences he observes between Italy and England

Billy May's poem - Magic