30th September 2016
At the CEIS Policy and Practice Conference this year there were four breakout sessions in the middle of the afternoon. The one I attended was about the creative industries, and the session opened with a staggering statistic – 14% of the social enterprise sector is made up of businesses that operate in the cultural and creative industries, yet most of them don’t self-identify as social enterprises.
Perhaps it is the nature of the creative industries, and this is something that I will return to in a later podcast, but those that do self-identify as social enterprises are doing some fantastic things. We have featured a few on this very podcast as it happens, and I’m particularly excited to add Eco Drama to the list.
Eco Drama is a theatre company that was founded in 2007. Their goal is to embed sustainability and ecology at the heart of children and young people’s learning experiences. They believe that theatre and drama are powerful tools that can be used to explore our relationship with the natural world, an ‘ecocentric’ relationship which they believe we are born with but that gradually disappears as we grow older.
They strive to continue, enhance, and in some places rekindle that relationship through a combination of theatre, drama, outdoor learning, gardening, horticulture and environmental learning.
In an era where climate change is fundamentally changing our world, we must in turn change the way we interact with it, and nurture compassion for the natural world. Ensuring that that this compassion remains a core value in the way live our lives, can only do good; particularly when such ideas are demonstrated to us at a young age.
Emily Reid is the founder and one of the creative leads at Eco Drama, and alongside her team she has been responsible not just for the growth of Eco Drama as a theatre company, but in creating productions for young people that have seen some excellent reviews over the years. She helped to cement their place as an important creative force for teaching youngsters about environmental concerns.
I think this is a wonderful interview and I hope you enjoy it.