🚨 ART FOR CHANGE: RESPONDING TO RACIAL VIOLENCE & SOCIAL UPHEAVAL:
Face Upheaval with Radical Empathy and Solidarity. Give yourself 15-Minute Art For Change Break-through Online Right Now - and give others similar support too
The recent civil unrest, riots, and racial tensions on our streets leave many of us feeling deeply isolated, anxious, or overwhelmed. This wave of racist violence has directly disrupted the only project for which we had secured formal funding—a dedicated program designed to bring together young people from diverse cross-community backgrounds with multi-disciplinary artists from equally diverse global traditions to lead arts-based civic action. Despite this disruption, and despite the fact that none of the core organisers who have built this initiative are salaried or possess financially secure lives or futures in Northern Ireland, we refused to step back. We have mobilised immediately because we feel an urgent duty to help others who are deeply affected by these events. While navigating fear for our own physical safety, we stand side-by-side with partners and friends who were born here in Northern Ireland—individuals who are themselves completely distraught, exhausted, and ashamed of this wave of violence. Year on year, we demonstrate that we can face and overcome recurring racial hostility. We respond actively with deep empathy, shared pain, and unyielding cross-community solidarity.
Support Our Organisational Survival and Collective Healing and Solidarity
eduSOIL CIC is a 100% volunteer-led, immigrant-founded non-profit social enterprise operating with zero core institutional funding since August 2025. To keep providing urgent cross-community psychosocial support, trauma-informed arts education, and safe digital spaces during moments of acute crisis, we have a small allocation of Arts Council NI funding, in-support from Queen’s University Belfast and are relying entirely on community backing. Support our team and help us reach others by taking some Art For Change time for yourself today, and by sharing this resource across your networks. Please consider backing our live fundraising appeal or sharing it with your personal and professional circles:
👉 Back the Arts-Based Cross-Community Support Campaign on Crowdfunder
Give Yourself 15-Minute Peacebuilding Break-through Time
You do not have to process your current anxiety alone. We have converted our framework into an immediate, self-paced digital peacebuilding intervention. Use the embedded step-by-step framework below to ground your nervous system, process heavy emotions, and channel your reflections into our permanent digital peace galleries.
(If you wish to process these emotions live alongside others in a safe, moderated digital room, you are also warmly invited to book your slot for our upcoming free Art For Change Online: Interactive Sessions.)
The Interactive Art For Change Break-through Time
Strategic Budget Realignment Notice
We originally held 10 fully subsidised in-school and community center slots for delivery across Belfast and Bangor this season. In light of the ongoing street disruptions and out of an abundance of caution for the physical safety of our facilitators and minoritised youth, we have responsibly reallocated that entire operational budget to fund our accessible, immediate online sessions.
However, our capacity to enter schools, local centers, and corporate boardrooms remains completely active for future terms. If your institution wants to guide teams through our tested peacebuilding and emotional literacy frameworks, you can book our mobile team for on-site execution later this year:
🎟️ Register Your Institution via the Art For Change Schools & Community Centres Portal: All creative outputs developed across these tracks are displayed in our curated digital galleries: Explore the Verified Art For Change Permanent Digital Showcase. Exceptional projects generated here will be selected to serve as official country delegates representing Northern Ireland on the global stage at the upcoming international Design for Change Greece Summit 2026 in Athens
Our On-Site Safety Protocols & Commitment
We are fully prepared to deliver world-class, on-site civic engagement programmes. However, because our executive delivery team is 99% immigrant-led, and our young participants—aged 8 to 17—hail from diverse, cross-community partners including Young At Art, Algochak, and Women Of Colour Belfast, we will only deliver sessions on-site when our team, children, and families feel entirely safe to navigate campus spaces.
While we actively maintain planned on-site calendar markers at Queen's University Belfast, please note that these configurations will seamlessly pivot to online interactive delivery tracks if local security requirements dictate.
All of our programs operate on a donation-based model. We are in urgent need of strategic funding to ensure our structural survival as an organization in Northern Ireland. Explore our live upcoming tracks and book your tickets below:
Current Live Pathways & Portals:
For Professionals, Educators & Community Executives: Learn our complete, Harvard-endorsed social innovation methodology to mentor youth through real-world social action campaigns.
🎟️ Reserve Your Tickets for the Art For Change Masterclasses at QUB: For Youth Cohorts & Volunteer Support Networks: We have active openings for children to join our flagship summer sprint, alongside spots for responsible adults to step in as group support mentors (Access requires mandatory compliance and background/AccessNI checks).
🎟️ Register for the Art For Change Summer Programme Intensive: The Crown Civic Evaluation & Public Launch Window: Witness our local young changemakers pitch their completed projects live to claim their slots on the international stage.
🎟️ Secure Tickets for the Art For Change 2026 Public Showcase
Did you take some Art For Change time and find it helpful? We offer so much more.
KNOW MORE
Contacts
Programme Enquiries & Sponsorship:
outreach@edusoil.com
Programme Bookings:
northernireland@edusoil.com
Socials
Design For Change Northern Ireland
is brought to you by eduSOIL CIC www.edusoil.com
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