West Midlands

The Canal & River Trust’s Waterways Heritage Skills Project created a pool of committed and skilled young people in waterway heritage skills, filling skills gaps within the Trust’s own workforce and the wider heritage sector.

On a mission to use heritage to give young people a voice, this project worked with diverse ethnic communities in Birmingham and the Black Country.

Running from March to September 2022, the £12million festival featured hundreds of artistic commissions, engaging a local and national audience with Birmingham’s cultural heritage.

Worcester Life Stories are building an online platform for recording and sharing local stories.

Young people recorded stories of their successful Birmingham hockey club, the Barford Tigers, to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Young people from Chesterton changed their attitude to their neighbourhood by uncovering its Roman past.

Inspired by TV series Peaky Blinders, young people used drama to explore the heritage of gang culture from Victorian times to the modern day.

School pupils explored Birmingham archives to discover more about how protesters helped win women the vote.

Young people from across Nuneaton and Bedworth worked with the local charity, Mercurial Arts, the Borough Council and English Heritage, to create their own unique listing system and identify and record the buildings and sites important to them.

A first for the West Midlands, Chinese Lives in Birmingham was created to capture the hidden histories of Birmingham's Chinese community.