community & charitY
Curious Agenda is on a mission to bring curiosity to the top of the agenda through events, community projects, installations and collaborations.
Curious Agenda CICs community work is predominantly centred around the Hastings & Rother area.
Part of our company mission is to make Hastings & St Leonards the flagship ‘Curious Town’, with the creativity and curiosity of the town harnessed to its full potential, creating a healthier, more joyful community.
Curious Agenda works as a Curiosity Curator for the Hastings & Rother community.
We curate events and installations in the area that are designed to inspire curiosity and promote mental well-being and creativity. We aim to be as inclusive as possible: much of what we do is free for the community and any ticketed events have low cost or free tickets available to those that need.
“It was an asset to the town, a comprehensive showcase of the curiosity that the people of Hastings love to live amongst”
- A Curious Town Dreams festival attendee
community events
⬇︎ So far, we have brought ⬇︎
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Dubbed Hastings the flagship ‘Curious Town’ with our 5-day immersive combined arts festival “A Curious Town Dreams” - our inaugural ‘A Curious Town’ festival, which we hope will continue to grow, and remain an annual event for years to come.
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Brought together over 100 artists and performers during our festival
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Facilitated 39 workshops offering you a chance to get curious, learn and explore
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Brought to life Imagication Adventuration for Coastal Currents arts festival, a combination of an immersive art installation and magical events. From artists, performers & storytellers to cake-makers, Brownies and a horticulturalist, we brought Coastal Currents to Crowhurst, including children in the Coastal Currents programme through free immersive and musical storytelling journeys.
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Organised a very ‘Curious Cheese Hunt’ around Harpers’ Caves and Gotham Alley in Hastings
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Brought a festive and delicious slice of Finland to Hastings & St Leonards to mark Finnish Independence Day and inspire curiosity about one of the lesser known countries in Europe.
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Worked with our first Youth Curiosity Ambassadors to improve their mental well-being, skills and confidence, and to help them get more creative work in the field they are interested in.
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Created 2 free trails around town ( a small hint towards much more ambitious trail plans for the near future).
“A Curious Kids Trail” in Trinity Triangle Heritage Action Zone for Hastings Commons and Hastings Independent Press
“A Curious Yarn: A Twisting Tale” - an audio story trail around Hastings Old Town by award winning Twice Shy Theatre, accompanied by Nessa Mann’s Art Map
“It’s really lovely to find something different and amazing that is affordable for everyone!”
- A Curious Town Dreams festival attendee
All of that, and it has only been a year.
We have even more ambitious aims for next year’s curiosity-inspiring events!
Also included in our plans are pioneering Curiosity Training programmes for individuals, businesses and youth, and a greater focus on charitable aims and benefits for children and young people, and members of the community that need it the most.
We listen to the needs and wants of the community, and try to help facilitate as much of what the area is missing as we can.
Youth & childrens programs
Curious Agenda’s programmes for children and youth are central to our community work, and we provide many free events for young people to inspire their curiosity, as well as offer free spaces to any ticketed events to make sure that all children and young people can get curious with us no matter what their circumstances are.
Our programmes are developed to meet needs of the community that aren’t being met yet.
“It was a much needed event for the Hastings families.”
- A Curious Town Dreams festival attendee
“Very different to anything else on offer. There aren't many (if any) arts festivals for kids.”
- A Curious Town Dreams festival attendee
Case Study:
One of our upcoming projects focuses on creating a series of fun and creative STEM focused workshops/clubs for children: born from listening to parents in the community and their frustrations and childrens’ needs.
Get in touch if you are interested in these for your child.
We have developed Youth Curiosity Training to help bring a range of benefits to young people, including improved mental well-being, confidence, motivation and creativity. As our mission is to inspire curiosity, our Youth Training doesn't just teach a simple skill required for work. First and foremost, we create engaging and interesting programmes that inspire young people to get curious and enjoy learning, whilst also teaching them skills that can benefit their life and future career prospects.
Our children’s programmes will also bring benefits for the older groups we work with. Curious Agenda aims to provide young people with the necessary training, as well as the experience running several sessions alongside us, so that soon they can feel confident enough to take ownership and lead the running of some clubs/workshops themselves, while we continue to provide them with support and resources. - This creates many benefits for both the children and youth involved.
We provide mentoring as well as training to young people. We are incredibly proud of what we have already achieved for our first Youth Curiosity Ambassadors.
“I feel valued and my opinions are always heard and I’ve learnt about being part of a team. I’ve learnt about preparing for jobs in the future and it's given me the confidence to tackle lots of different scenarios.”
- Ash 16, Youth Curiosity Ambassador
Without funding, we were able to achieve important and inspiring work in a short space of time, which only proves to us further how necessary our work is, and how tenacious we are in making it happen!
As testified by the inspiring teens we have worked with, working with us sparked their curiosity and improved the mental well-being, motivation, creative-thinking and confidence of participants, as well as helped them acquire a range of skills, knowledge and build a creative network in the community and even garner job offers.
They are now also a great deal more job prepared since being given responsibility in a large production with so many different skills at play, and so many different people to interact with. Nothing will phase them now!
With the necessary resources we can go so much further with our youth programme and support so many more young people in different ways.
Case Study:
Youth Mental Health has always been a concern, but the rates of probable mental disorder have skyrocketed in recent years leaving an alarming situation that needs urgent intervention now from anyone that can help.
In the UK in 2022, 18% of children aged 7 -16 and 22% of young people aged 17 -24 had a probable mental disorder. Rates have increased dramatically since 2007, most rapidly in the last 4 years. In young people aged 17-19 rates more than doubled in 15 years, going from 1 in 10 in 2007 to 1 in 4 in 2022.
Such a huge number who need mental health support that impossible for an already stretched system to meet. If can't access the support from gov they need support from elsewhere.
Curious Agenda’s Youth Programme aims to address this issue and improve mental well-being from various different angles - proven success already this year, and also bring extensive previous experience and solid knowledge of youth psychology.
supporting local creatives
We work to support the wonderfully curious creative talent in the community. A Curious Town festival as well as our other events, bring a large group of creatives together and also helps promote their work.
We support local artists and performers by offering good paid work and look forward to being able to support many more as we grow our business and revenue. We encourage and support artists to work on projects that interest them, and help to harness the curiously creative talent they already have, rather than stifle them.
We support a mix of new and established artists, covering a broad spectrum of the local community. Some artists featured in our debut A Curious Town Festival even made their first sale to a member of the public there!
We work to establish ongoing relationships with artists and performers, in the hopes that we will be able to work together again. Our aim is that if a commission or opportunity arises in the future, we can bring in the right Curious Artists from our network to collaborate with us again, bringing them more paid work and helping to expand their reach.
charitable mission
Every Curious Agenda led project is driven by a desire to help people above all else. Alongside inspiring curiosity within the community, we have many other charitable aims that drive our projects. We are constantly considering how we can work towards our mission whilst also tackling important issues, such as social inequality or the destruction of the environment. For example, next year's A Curious Town Festival will concentrate specifically on supporting environmental causes in a variety of ways - a natural focus considering the theme (but that's a secret for now!).
We also volunteer our time when possible to community projects run by other organisations, because we recognise that a collective effort is always better than working in a vacuum.
Once the business is fully self-sustaining, we will be able to focus even more energy into new charitable endeavours.
We are currently working on an exciting project that aims to help tackle food poverty within the local community and nationwide, while inspiring curiosity.
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We are working to make our events as accessible as possible to all members of the community, and offer free or low cost tickets for those that need them.
We make activities that are often the reserve of the more wealthy, accessible to everyone. This includes tackling some of the major disparity between opportunities available to private and state school students.
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We took steps to outreach to community groups, e.g. the Y Centre, for our festival, but this is something we plan to do more of. We want to get those don’t normally access this kind of event involved. They may think it isn’t for them, or think they cannot afford, have access issues, issues of transport etc - these are the ones that may need what we offer the most. We plan to take curiosity to them to make them feel welcome and organise transport and free tickets if necessary.
We will work actively to connect with more marginalised groups in the community.
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We want to help galvanise people in the community to work for the common good. We are floating around various ideas including starting a Sunday Assembly.
Our mission to help the community is still in its infancy and the scope is huge. We will continue to listen to community needs and wants and work hard to find ways we can help those we can.
We already have a long list of ideas sparked by our curiosity of what we can do to help tackle issues such as social inequality, mental health in young people, isolation of old people. Without funding or the manpower, we are limited in what we can do.
Please get in touch with any ideas of how we can work together for the good of the community, or any ideas of what you would like to see in the area.
