Joe’s Creative Talent Shines

Posted at 12:01 pm on 18th November, 2020

MancSpirit Our Trafford Festival

We were proud to hear of Joe, Year 11, and his involvement in The MancSpirit Our Trafford Festival in October, which aimed to celebrate local creative talent.

MancSpirit, the festival organisers, invited anyone in Trafford to share a short video of their talent in anything from art, photography, poetry and more. 

Using his BTEC Performing Arts experience, Joe took the festival as an opportunity to create a short video of a performance of his beautiful poem ‘A Yellow Star.’  To watch the video, click on the image below.

Joe said:

“I wrote the poem for the Anne Frank Creative Writing Awards. I’m Jewish and I wanted to explore my history as well as everything we have learnt from Anne Frank’s experience.

“I found out about the festival through working with the Trafford Young Carers and I thought, for my BTEC Performing Arts, it was a great opportunity to perform and get my work shown.  The feedback was really positive!”

 MancSpirit organisers both tweeted about Joe’s performance.   Paul said:

“Brilliantly written and performed.  We’re massively proud of you.”

Damien added:

“It's an absolute pleasure providing creative sessions for this amazing young man and his peers over the last few months as part of the MancSpirit Caring For Our Carers programme.”

MancSpirit, Greater Manchester’s Mental Wellbeing Charity, organised the festival for Trafford-based groups, charities, cultural organisations, community champions and individual creatives. 

The festival showcased all the amazing things community groups and members do to support mental wellbeing and bring love, inspiration, vibrancy, energy, compassion, colour, art and entertainment to the people who live, learn work and socialise in Trafford.  The festival will be used to create a lasting legacy, through a variety of projects, and a celebration of Our Trafford.  

Sara Todd, Trafford Council Chief Executive, commented on Twitter about the MancSpirit festival:

“You should be very proud indeed of what was achieved last week - against all odds too. Thank you so much for the creativity, passion and commitment from you, your team and all the brilliant Our Trafford participants and performers.”