WHAT IS YCUK?

YCUK is a non profit community interest company supporting young people aged 16-25. We are a creative agency on a mission.

MISSION

VISION

Build a diverse creative sector that's accessible to all

Champion marginalised voices

Enable youth and community

to thrive

Create positive change wherever possible

PILLARS OF SERVICE

Youth Development

When training young talent, we develop the human as well as the creative.

Creative Agency

Creative and media production services. Our main revenue stream that funds the other services

Cultural Activation

Building hubs that enable youth, community and the established industry to thrive together.

Value Sharing

Consulting, training and public speaking on how we built our unique model.

WHO ARE WE?

Youth and Community

We are by young people, for young people.

Our service was built in collaboration with the community we serve.

Culture and Values

We are a humanitarian organisation. We are anti discrimination of all kind and approach conflict resolution using restorative justice .

Intergenerational Collaboration

Our service was born out of our founder Christoff Taylor collaborating with young people. The blend of perspectives and experiences became a catalyst to our rapid growth.

Social Enterprise

We deliver a commercially viable product whilst creating social impact through our very existence. We aren't funding dependent which means we can service our communit on our terms, long term.

OUR STORY

Creative Workshops

Community Response

YCUK Founded

YCUK's founder, Christoff Taylor, has been working with young people in Lambeth for over a decade. When his own professional media career took off he remained embedded in the community and on the frontlines of gang violence. Christoff began sharing skills, time and his equipment to young people as a means of sharing the privileged information he learnt from breaking into the creative industry.

Funding cuts lead to the closure of that service, but the young collective continued to meet, learn skills and collaborate on creative projects. Every week we'd get together and practise our craft, share ideas and discuss what this could become. Success felt distant but we knew the power in our collective. We would all go further if we went together and we embodied that from

the beginning.

Christoff began sharing briefs from his network with the young collective. Eventually, we were all delivering commercial briefs and were discussing what our future could become. Each of us wrote a vision board of what we needed to pursue our talents, interests and passions. Christoff lent 5 teenagers, 5k and an offer of business partnership and in 2019, YCUK was founded. In 2021, we achieved everything on our vision board.

THE PROBLEM

CREATIVE

SECTOR

92%

of creative industry are

from an upper middle

class background

HIGH

start up costs + need to work for free makes sector inaccessible

89%

Of the sector

is white

>4%

Female leadership

YOUTH SERVICES

44%

of youth service budget

cuts in the last decade

43%

of youth centres across London have closed since 2012

600

Full time youth workers have lost their jobs

10

Councils have no specific female service provision

THE EVIDENCE

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

YCUK

Over 2000

Job opportunities paid

at LLW or higher

88%

Sub contractors

are non white

4,968

pieces of equipment loaned

to young people for free

67%

Non white leadership team

33%

Female leadership

THE EVIDENCE

CREATIVE AGENCY

Click on the buttons to see case studies of our work

SUPPORT YCUK

WHAT YOU WILL BE SUPPORTING

Youth Development

When training young talent, we develop the human as well as the creative.

Cultural Activation

Building hubs that enable youth, community and the established industry to thrive together.

Value Sharing

Consulting, training and public speaking on how we built our unique model.

THE EVIDENCE

CULTURAL ACTIVATION

During the pandemic had the opportunity to take over an entire floor at the London Television Studios, as part of the 72 Upper Ground redevelopment with Mitsubishi, CO-RE and FutureCity. They called it Project Preview, we called it the SouthBank Shut Down and we shut down the SouthBank.

The project was the UK's largest free to use creative space for young people offering a broad range of free to use services all fitted out with professional standard production equipment.

THE EVIDENCE

VALUE SHARING

Events

Workshops

Dana Media

WORK WITH US

CREATIVE AGENCY

CLIENT

For collaborations and partnerships please fill out our briefing form here. Once filled out an appropriate member of the team will get back to you shortly to deal with your enquiry.

TALENT DIRECTORY

If you are a creative and would like to be considered for future projects please fill in our talent form here. Once filled in you will be added to our talent directory and contacted by YCUK.

tRAINING

If you would like to hear about training opportunities and workshop please fill in our Training Opportunities form here.

Contact us

Yasmin

Christoff

yasminycuk@gmail.com

chris@christofftaylor. com

youngcreatorsuk

youngcreatorsuk@gmail.com