PANARTS

Public benefits

The direct benefits flowing from this purpose include increasing knowledge of different lifestyles, values and beliefs of communities; improving understanding of different cultures and increasing tolerance in communities; encouraging good community relations across Northern Ireland; communities having a better understanding of how cultural

expression has developed over time; increased knowledge of other traditions from different communities and use the arts as the vehicle to explore and discover more about cultural expression in Northern Ireland; inspiring people to be more creative using traditional arts, particularly song traditions and traditional or roots music; encouraging better relations between groups by developing and delivering arts projects; bringing cultures together and increasing contact to become more creative; working with victims of the Northern Ireland conflict and exploring their lives through the arts as in our current work in partnership with WAVE and Social Work Department at Queens University Belfast; organising an annual arts festival in Belfast City Centre which is open to all; developing arts skills encourages creativity and cultural expression; young people benefit from training in schools where we bring award winning songwriters into different schools to inspire them to get involved in the arts; a widening of the public knowledge of different cultures through our unique ‘Songwriters in the Round’ events involving artists from different countries; an appreciation of cultural influences on our music and how musical styles travel between countries enriching lives. Each year we evaluate our work and have many positive comments from participants in the songwriters’ festival and in our current work with social workers at home and in the USA. There is no harm arising from the purposes A lot of our work has been focused in areas of high deprivation and people training to work with different communities. Panarts work has benefitted hundreds of people who are writing songs about their lives and culture and our international exchange programme is growing every year, linking local people with people from other cultures especially the USA. For example in the past year we have worked directly with more than 100 songwriters, 120 social workers in QUB, 25 staff and students from Belmont University Nashville and staff and students in Florida State University Tallahassee. There is no private benefit flowing from any of the purposes

What your organisation does

Panarts develops arts based projects to celebrate diversity in Northern Ireland. The projects are delivered mainly to a range of people in universities, community groups, to the general public and to those taking part in the Panarts international exchange programmes.