SUPPORTING CREATIVE JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title: CREATE COMMUNITY WEALTH – SUPPORTING CREATIVE
Accountable to: WHALE Art’s Create Community Wealth Project Lead
Personnel responsible for: N/A
Location: To work between WHALE Arts Centre & North Edinburgh Arts in the Wester Hailes and North Edinburgh areas
Hours of Work: 16 hours per week (2 x days per week, can be arranged on a flexible basis in line with the needs of the project)
Contract Length: 17 months (June 2022-October 2023)
Salary: £238 per day (£35,938 over 17 months)
PROJECT SUMMARY:
Create Community Wealth is an exciting long-term collaborative project that aims to develop micro-enterprises across the communities in Wester Hailes and Muirhouse in Edinburgh.
Inspired by the grassroots movement of the Granby Four Streets in Liverpool and other Community Wealth Building initiatives around the world, this project aims to tackle social exclusion and improve wellbeing and local economic prospects through creativity.
Create Community Wealth is part of a wider national Culture Collective programme and is a partnership between WHALE Arts, North Edinburgh Arts, SCOREscotland and Passion4Fusion.
The project will embed a team of freelance creative people within the communities of North Edinburgh and Wester Hailes to engage with locals and help them to create and develop unique products and services. These products and services could include arts and handmade crafts, food and drink products, wellbeing and creative services that reflect the needs and wants of the community. The long-term goal of the project is to work with the community to develop sustainable selling platforms. This could include regular street markets but may evolve into other opportunities as the project progresses.
SUPPORTING CREATIVE – ROLE SPECIFICATION
We are recruiting three (3) Supporting Creatives to join the Create Community Wealth team and assist our Lead Creatives with the overall delivery and development of the project.
For this role, we are looking for creative people with 3+ years’ experience in their field who are confident in their capacity to be able to share skills and knowledge, be key members of a wider team, think outside the box and be a source of inspiration to others. We are looking for individuals who have an interest in using their creative skills to support the delivery of activities and the wider project in response to the needs and wants of participants. Due to the dynamic and experimental nature of this project, the roles will require good problem-solving skills, flexibility and a hands-on approach.
Working as part of a small team of freelancers (2 Lead Creatives, 3 Supporting Creatives and 1 Project Documenter), you will be supported by the Create Community Wealth Project Lead and key staff from the project’s four partner organisations – WHALE Arts, North Edinburgh Arts, SCOREscotland and Passion4Fusion.
We are particularly interested in people who understand the importance of the role creativity can play in helping communities flourish, and who may have previous entrepreneurial experience in managing their creative practice as sole traders or micro-businesses.
We encourage applications from all creative backgrounds, including (but not limited to) potters, artisans, designers, makers, sculptors, crafters, musicians, performance artists, painters. One area of community interest is ceramics/pottery, so we would welcome applications from individuals who could share their knowledge and skills in this area. However, we would be delighted to see applications from candidates with a range of skills across different art forms to match the diversity of interests within the community.
Deadline for applications is Friday 6th May
Interviews will be held on Wednesday 18th May
For further information, please contact: shirin@whalearts.co.uk
SUPPORTING CREATIVE – PERSON SPECIFICATION
The main components to this role are:
– Being able to inspire, nurture confidence and work with Lead Creatives to support community members to develop their own ideas, products and/or services
– Assisting the Lead Creatives in the overall delivery and development of the project. This will include; helping in the preparation, set up and delivery of group sessions and workshops, contributing and sharing specialist skills where appropriate, attending team meetings, and contributing to project development and evaluation.
– Being a key member of the project team to ensure the smooth running of the project and attending specific training sessions and wider network events as required
We’re looking for someone who is…
– Well-organised, hard-working and a good team player • Creative and experienced in their chosen skill/craft/specialism(s) • A great communicator who is experienced in communicating with a diverse range of people, including those who speak different languages • Has an understanding of the issues facing people living in areas of deprivation • Open-minded and committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion • Self-motivated and able to use their own initiative • Able to think expansively, to recognise opportunities and challenge assumptions
You will have experience of…
– Supporting groups of adults and sharing your specialist skills with others
– Working with culturally diverse communities and people facing additional barriers
Ideally but not essential, you may have…
- A knowledge of Wester Hailes and/or North Edinburgh communities
- Experience in using the arts to address community issues
- The ability to speak more than one language would be an advantage
- Small business development and entrepreneurial skills would also be welcomed
SUPPORTING CREATIVE – APPLICATION PROCESS To apply, please tell us about your experience and outline why you feel you would be a great fit for the role and wider project. We’d like to know: - what specific skills/talents/ideas you could bring to this role
- examples of how you have worked within culturally diverse communities and/or with those living in areas of deprivation, and;
- an example of your role in supporting someone/a group to achieve a goal or overcome a problem, with reference to the opportunity/challenges that you faced.
You can submit your answers as a written document or an audio recording or a video. Written documents should be no more than 3 pages (A4). Audio and video recordings should be no more than 5 minutes long. We also need you to provide details of two referees, including at least one previous employer. Please send your application, in whatever format you choose, by email to recruitment@whalearts.co.uk using Create Community Wealth Supporting Creative in the subject line. Please include details of your referees in your email. Please do not send questions about the role to this email address as it will not be monitored on a daily basis. We are happy to answer any questions about this role, please send your questions to: Shirin Karbor, Project Lead, Create Community Wealth – shirin@whalearts.co.uk Equal Opportunities Monitoring: WHALE Arts Agency is committed to recruiting high quality candidates whose skills and experience are most suited to the job regardless of sex, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion (or beliefs), marital status, sexual orientation (or perceived sexual orientation), disability, age or political affiliation. We would be grateful if you would complete the Equal Opportunities form – see below. This information is for monitoring purposes only, it will be treated as confidential and will not be used in the selection process. We acknowledge that if you submit a video recording, certain characteristics such as gender or colour may be evident to the shortlisting team. We will do our best to mitigate any unconscious bias by ensuring both the shortlisting team and interview panel are as culturally diverse as possible. Confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job – we do not want this to be the case for you. However you identify and whatever background you bring, if this role feels like something that would make you excited about getting up and coming to work then please apply.
