The Story

Established in 2015, by Merseyside Youth Association’s RAISE Team, The NOW Festival aims to engage young people in a creative discussion around the topic of mental health, through whatever ‘NOW’ issue is selected for that year. 2021 will be the NOW Festival’s 6th year.

Previous themes have included: ‘Mental Health and Technology’, ‘Mental Health and the Rights of the Child’, ‘My Education, My Mental Health’, ‘Rise Up: Adverse Childhood Experience’, and ‘Mental Health & Belonging’.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, The RAISE team feel now more than ever, children and young people’s voices need to be listened to regarding how COVID has affected their lives, along with messages of hope for the future and what change they want to see, So, 2021 NOW Festival will be virtual for the first time ever!

The aims of this year’s virtual NOW Festival 2021:

• To present a virtual performance piece online.
• To engage children and young people in creative discussion around mental health and COVID-19.
• To facilitate the production of high-quality performance pieces centred around the chosen ‘Now’ issue – listening to the voices of children and young people during COVID-19.
• To celebrate the creativity of young people in a fun and inspirational environment that will be a catalyst for positive change.

The Project

For 2021, we were asked to create a whole new look for the festival capturing the feel of the new online format and to renergise the brand with a new logo and website. As we have done previously, we worked closely with Merseyside Youth Association and their young people on the project iterating as went until we hit on a final product all groups were happy with.

We were also asked to create digital resources and infographics to be shared during the festival and to schools and partner organisations on the lead up to the festival.