Xahnaa
In 2012 we worked with the Princes Trust to deliver Truth About Youth in Bristol. Truth About Youth is a project funded by the Cooperative Foundation to challenge negative perceptions of young people. We did it again 2013.
One of the participants was 16 year old Xahnaa, who had just finished school and didn’t know what she wanted to do.
She spent three solid weeks with Travelling Light, working hard to create an original performance about being a young person trying to find their identity in an adult-led world.
Xahnaa worked with a director, designer, musician and choreographer over the week, as well as making some new friends.
"It was great trying and learning new or different skills. But most of all it has been great because I’ve actually been getting out of bed and doing something!"
But her story doesn’t stop there.
A year later, Xahnaa got back in touch with us because she was looking at ways of raising some money to apply to join in the National Youth Theatre Summer School. We invited her to volunteer with us – she helped on the set of the short film Parallels we made with our Youth Theatre – and in return we helped sponsor her place.
And then again, she came back to us looking to build some further experience – so we offered her a paid job assisting with a short project at a local school in Bristol.
We didn’t hear from her for a while but then out of the blue she got in touch:
"How's it going? I'm good thank you. I've been meaning to email you, I have good news! I started applying to university's and drama schools and a few weeks ago I was offered a place at the The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama to do the BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre and Education course yaaay! I wanted to thank you for your help over the years as it made a real difference."