AlacARTe

In the Brussels region, more than 3,500 children and youngsters are cared for by youth support services every year. Their needs in terms of leisure time are often a blind spot, especially in the cultural sector. At the same time, their carers often lack an overview of the cultural activities that are available and tailored to their needs. With AlacARTe, we want to build bridges to promote cultural participation among this specific group of children and young people.

Specifically, we are setting up partnerships between partners from youth care and the broader cultural sector (culture, heritage, the socio-cultural field). These collaborations serves as a basis for pilot projects, where children and young people can express themselves creatively, discover their talents, develop them or simply enjoy their free time. Participation and involvement are crucial, with Lasso providing support tailored to the group and its individual participants in order to remove as many barriers as possible.

We coordinate the whole process: bringing together potential partners, guiding the process towards these pilot projects and coordinating between all parties involved. We pay particular attention to flexibility and respond to the capacity of supervisors. We mediate between all parties involved and evaluate regularly. Besides this, we focus on strengthening the skills of professionals and volunteers. This is done through advice, workshops and by facilitating exchange within the network of the organisations and individuals involved.

We actively share the insights and experiences we gain during AlacARTe with the Brussels field and beyond. In this way, we encourage broader cooperation on cultural participation for children and young people in youth care.

We are shaping AlacARTe with partners from youth care: Try Out, Homaar and 't Pasrel. The project is made possible with funding from the Flemish Government and additional support from the King Baudouin Foundation.