Home Third Sector, Health & Education IVE ignites opportunities for young people with almost £1m Lottery funding

IVE ignites opportunities for young people with almost £1m Lottery funding

Creative development charity IVE has secured £962,300 Heritage Lottery funding through its ‘Kick the Dust’ programme for an exciting new project which will benefit young people across Yorkshire.

Ignite Yorkshire’ aims to forge a new relationship between young people and Yorkshire’s industrial heritage over the next four years, by giving young people the support to creatively interpret and challenge the meaning of the region’s heritage.

The project places young people and their ideas at the centre of heritage development, aiming to ensure its relevance for current and future generations. Through a range of heritage, creative and youth sector organisations, Ignite Yorkshire will engage diverse groups of young people with a range of activities; from canal conservation and stone masonry to music festivals and augmented reality – reimagining the past, present and future.

Marie Millward, project manager at IVE, said: “Yorkshire is rightly recognised worldwide as a cradle of innovation for the industrial revolution and it is hard to escape the influence of that age.


“It is visible in the buildings, waterways and infrastructure of the towns and cities of the region, influencing our sense of place, our heritage, our economy. But as many traditional industries pass into memory, what does this history, and the physical marks it makes, mean to young people born in the 21st century?

“Through Ignite Yorkshire, we will explore new ways to make heritage relevant to a new generation so that they can play a dynamic role in how it will be protected, managed, maintained and presented in the future.”

The exciting new project will support young people to re-interpret Yorkshire’s industrial history to fit the modern narrative of Yorkshire today, find ways to better understand, make-sense of and engage creatively with Yorkshire’s past, learn valuable skills needed to preserve historical buildings and manage visitor experiences and events, provide work experience, volunteering and career opportunities, and see the set up of youth boards which will be tasked with coming up with new ideas for heritage sector challenges.

Ignite Yorkshire will support staff and volunteers at museums and heritage locations to provide a space for young people to participate, flourish and lead new areas of work. It will also help heritage organisations build long-term plans for continuing to attract visitors and to tell their story to future generations.

Funding has been awarded through Heritage Lottery Fund’s (HLF) “Kick the Dust” programme; a pioneering pilot grant programme which distributes £10m from the National Lottery to youth and heritage organisations across the UK. At its core is a group of Young Heritage Ambassadors who are on a mission to ‘stir up heritage’ and have played a major part in allocating the grants.

24-year-old Alex Smyth, a Heritage Ambassador from Hull, said: “It has been a brilliant experience learning about the Heritage Lottery Fund’s work and exploring ways of involving more young people in heritage. I’m thrilled that the Ignite project has won funding, as we found its plans to involve young people in Yorkshire’s industrial heritage especially appealing. Making Yorkshire’s heritage easier to participate in for more people my age is very important to me, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the project progresses in the future.”

The 17 young people aged 16-25 have been recruited from across the UK to work with HLF on making heritage more inclusive for people of their age group and have advised HLF’s decision panel on the projects they found to be most useful and appealing.

IVE is the only organisation in the Yorkshire region to be awarded a grant through this fund following an open and competitive application process.