Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 70

supporting individual and community well-being and easing the strain of
modern life. Yet we are such a long way from systematic, long-term solutions
to celebrating these facts, as evidenced recently by the foundation Nesta and
the Cultural Learning Alliance (CLA), a collective voice working to ensure
that all children have meaningful access to culture.
If sustained access to the arts and cultural engagement can improve
attainment, cognitive ability, behaviour, skills, and mental and physical wellbeing,
as well as positively influencing the likelihood of voting, volunteering,
getting a degree, and getting and keeping a job, then why are arts education,
creative learning, and cultural engagement programmes sitting so quietly on
the sidelines of our contemporary cultural practice?
Certainly, there are arts charities delivering valuable standalone projects and
schools are doing their best within the curriculum and as time and priorities
allow. But with ever-dwindling resource and an increasingly competitive
funding environment, even the aggregated help from organizations is
not enough for teachers and youth workers, who can only whisper at the
possibilities of significant societal and educational improvement as a result
of arts access and participation. How long do we suppress the massive
potential of the arts to help make the difference to their imagination and
ingenuity and support young people to achieve and attain in life, school, and
work?
What we need is big, bold, ambitious, and transformational governmental
strategies to build long-term and sustained creative and cultural activity in
areas where the effects might resonate most strongly.
We need to strategize, lobby, network, connect, collaborate, advocate, and
invest in the people who are passionate about putting young people first.
We need to support visionary organizations to develop creative ideas and
solutions to tackle the major societal changes we face today. That way we can
build an inclusive creative nation in which all voices can be heard, and build
from a single whispered note to a resounding cultural chorus.
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