This Is Me at Derwent Youth Centre

Spoken word artists Jamie Thrasivoulou and Jewel Campbell, and dance artist Isobel Davis came into Derwent Youth Centre in March to make some work reflecting how the young people feel about their local area.

Jamie Thrasivoulou is Derby County’s Official Poet, and worked with the young people over three weeks to create a poem reflecting their city, access to arts organisations and ambition ‘This Is Derwent.’

This Is Derwent

To access our hobbies – we’ll need a ticket to the building
We need to be welcomed and not just thrown in the bin
Respect is the key – but the door swings both ways

We’re all accountable for our own actions
The Arts Organisations in our City are accountable for welcoming you and me
We need to feel safe in these spaces

In order to fly high like the birds outside our windows
To prosper we need focus – to focus we need a goal

If we’re to succeed in making progress – we will need support
If we are expected to flourish – we will need the patience

To gain a career – we need opportunities
To achieve – we’ll require desire
To grasp our future – we need initiative.

There is more than one route available –
We need to make this obvious to see –
instead of being branded ‘failures’ if we don’t choose university.

We want to step out of darkness and into our lives.
Our dreams can become our realities
Some of us dream of working in demolition – so we can demolish stereotypes

We know we’ll all make mistakes and this is how we’ll learn
After all it’s not judgement we are seeking
We are seeking the chance to grow
Therefore we need to know:
That responsibility is not a concept to be feared
But an asset to be gained.

by Jamie Thrasivoulou and Derwent Youth Centre