Taakin Heeds (Talking Heads)

Young people creating their own tee-shirts
Young people creating their own tee-shirts

Young Roots

Date awarded
Location
Monument
Local Authority
Newcastle upon Tyne
Applicant
Headliners
Award Given
£25000
“A number of the young people I work with can be written off as they don’t engage with school … showcasing the [film] to the school was a great eye opener and showed the young people in a positive light for a change.”
Youth Partner Agency
Young people explored the origins of the Geordie language and dialect, its preservation through song, poetry and film, and how it could be considered a social barrier by both Geordies and outsiders.

A ‘peer group’ of seven young people aged 16–19 regularly met at Headliners, a charity working with disadvantaged young people using journalism as a tool for learning. They drew on activities in our guidance to discuss their heritage, before focusing on a subject they found representative of culture and identity in the North East, the Geordie dialect. Staff supported the peer group to manage the project, including deciding workshop content, identifying partners and monitoring budgets and progress.

Headliners worked with six other youth organisations to engage 75 more young people to explore and interpret the dialect. The young people received training in media skills by Headliners. Newcastle City Library, the main heritage partner, delivered a series of workshops, training participants in archive research and oral history interviewing skills. Young people also visited museums and other heritage sites.

Participants traced words back as far as Anglo-Saxon times, and looked at more recent influences on the language of Hollywood, TV and immigration. Working in eight groups, they recorded interviews and produced two photography exhibitions shown across Newcastle, as well as DVDs, podcasts and a comic strip. They reviewed the British Library’s ‘Evolving English’ exhibition when it toured to Newcastle and wrote a song celebrating the Geordie accent.

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