A COMMUNITY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES AND THEIR CREATIVE INTERESTS.
The Uplift Vision
Our vision is to create a safe space where young people can build a sense of connection and self-confidence. We run creative skill programs for young people to learn new skills that they might not have had an opportunity to experiment with before. Since 2018, we have had the privilege of working with over 100 amazing young people, through organisations like Youth Off The Streets, Project Youth and the Salvation Army.
Currently Uplift runs workshops offering creative skills:
♡ Community Outreach Programs: Workshop series that target art therapy and embrace creativity (Online & Physical). Our Outreach curriculum currently offers screen-printing, photoshop, digital art, sewing and photography.
Connecting our community is key and we aim to take over the digital sphere with our platform to bridge our youths and emerging creatives all into one big melting pot.
Our Community Outreach Program is continuously expanding its range of creative skills. If there's a specific creative skill or art form you're interested about learning, please reach out to us!
Our Timeline
Hover over to see our achievements each year!
March 2022 - The Community Outreach Programs Designer Program was developed; creative workshops that touched on screen-printing, photoshop, digital art, sewing and photography
April 2022 - $24k+ in grant funding + qualitative support for our programs
June 2022 - Creative workshops with Oasis; worked with several young people throughout multiple sessions with 86% of participants expressing interest in participating in our workshop again and would also recommend our workshop to others
June 2021 - The first pilot of the YDP with the Bridge refuge, providing some valuable learnings for future workshop development. Was told, ‘Uplift was cool’ B-)
August 2021 - The Audible Prints podcast is released.
November 2021 -November 2021 - When The First Tooth Falls Upcycled Collection: Uplift x Dallas Hurst x Yanti Peng
April 2020 - The COVID-19 lockdowns provide the team with space and time to reflect on what has worked and what did not.
July 2020 - The Young Designer Program is born; a more advanced creative workshop program to open the door to a potential career in art, design or fashion.
November 2020 - The release of Cycles, the first reel of in-house designs to celebrate the wider creative community and lay the groundworks for the Uplift creative hub, a community that we hope our workshop participants will aspire to contribute to.
April 2019 - To raise awareness around the project, we take part in the Youth Homelessness Matters Day in Sutherland.
September 2019 - After a 5-week program with Project Youth, Uplift successfully hosts its first showcase exhibition, celebrating the T-shirts created by the participants.
October 2019 - A 5-week program with Jacaranda Cottage to continue the momentum.
March 2018 - Practical challenges with t-shirt painting and a woeful drop-in workshop convinced the team to switch to a new program for supporting the creativity of disadvantaged young people: t-shirt screen-printing workshops.
June 2018 - The first pilot of a 1-week screen-printing workshop with Oasis Youth Support Network.
July 2018 - The program is extended to a 2-week workshop series for a visit to the After Dark Program run by Glebe Youth Services.
August 2018 - The program curriculum is extended even further to a 5-week workshop model for pilots with the Shack and later, a return to Oasis.
October 2017 - Uplift is founded during a student university case competition at UNSW.
December 2017 - The first pilot of our original idea with Project Youth: a t-shirt painting workshop to nurture the creativity of young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.