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At the end of 2024, we held two podcasting workshops for young people as part of the Coastal Catalyst project. Together with students, we explored the art of interview techniques and guided them in crafting their very own podcast – turning their ideas into compelling stories. We hope you enjoy listening to their stories…

Teen Tunes, a podcast created by Freya and Ben, is a delightful dive into the roots of their passion for music.

The Things We’re Passionate About is a podcast created by media students from Brighton Aldridge Community Academy. It focuses on a number of big issues they care about: from bringing more colour into our city and better buses to the cost of living, the minimum wage, women’s rights, litter and secure housing.

These podcasts were created with the help of Make (Good) Trouble. Coastal Catalyst is supported by Future Creators, Brighton Dome, Talent Accelerator and Arts Council England.

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This is just a quick note to say a big thank you to you! Thanks to all our supporters, partners, clients and workshop participants – together we’ve created some truly inspiring artwork, films, podcasts, and mystical stories!

Just some of this year’s highlights

We’re very proud of the work that’s come out of 2024 – the young people we’ve worked with have created some fantastic creative content. 

From Series 5 of Raising Teens which was broadcast in January and February on BBC Sussex and Surrey (all episodes are available to listen to here), to our final project of 2024, developing workshops for the Future Creators programme.  

Our Holiday, Activities and Food drama club saw us back in the gorgeous South Downs National Park with Dragon Drama for a week of storytelling, den-building and… well, drama!

We spent a delightful couple of days in the summer with Wakehurst’s work experience students. Their podcasts: Orchids, Poo Sprinkles and Us and Angry Ponds and Nuclear Spreadsheets (listen below) are well worth a listen – they’ll transport you back to the summer with the sounds of nature recorded in the gardens.

Our film for the East Sussex social prescribing pilot tells the stories of children, families and professionals involved in the pilot.

Our Catalyst programme came to a close this autumn – we had an incredible 190+ young people attend workshops with some fantastic artists over the past two years. You can see their creative work in the Catalyst Gallery on our website. Below are images from the final Catalyst workshop at The Towner in Eastbourne with artists Lindsey Smith and Tom Goulden from Priority 1-54.

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To close the year, we held workshops as part of the Future Creators programme. Ben and Freya’s Teen Tunes podcast is a delightful listen. In it, they talk about their musical influences, what inspires them and what they want to do in the future. 

We also worked with students from BACA who designed some brilliant graffiti boards with graffiti artist Tom Goulden. Their artwork represented the things they’re passionate about – from bringing more colour to Brighton through street art and the cost of living, to women’s rights and secure housing. They learnt how to interview each other and to make a podcast to discuss what could be done to make things better in future.  (See photo at the top of this blog post!)

So that’s it for 2024. See you next year!

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The Make (Good) Trouble team has just finished making a film about the amazing social prescribing pilot programme in East Sussex, which you can watch below.

Created for East Sussex County Council and NHS Sussex, the film tells the stories of children, families and professionals involved in the pilot.

Social prescribing is a non-medical approach to mental health and wellbeing. “It offers time, space and a supported personalised approach to explore what matters to individuals, and to help support them as quickly and easily as possible.” (National Children’s Bureaux).

The programme used social prescribing and positive activities – like cooking classes, physical activities, and getting out in nature – to support children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing. We could see how much it transformed young people’s lives.

As one parent said in the film: “She’s blossoming at school now. It’s put in [place] a lot of strategies that that they’re still using. If you’re honest with them and you tell them everything, they’ll help. We’re living proof of that … people need to hear the good things that they do. There’s not enough people shouting – they need to shout from the rooftops about it.”

Big thanks to Luke Lebihan and Grace Bagwell for their brilliant work on this film.

Find out more about NHS Sussex’s social prescribing plan.

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Orchids, Poo Sprinkles and Us…

That’s the name of one of the podcasts created by work experience students detailing their experiences of their placement week at the glorious botanic garden, Wakehurst, in Sussex, part of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. So if you’re interested in finding out what poo sprinkles are, give them a listen (below)!

They created the podcasts on the final day of their placement with Make (Good) Trouble. Our one-day workshop is designed to help young people to make sense of their work placements, articulate what they’ve learnt, and sharpen their communication, and listening skills. It also helps them to prepare for future job interviews. 

We were invited to devise and deliver a workshop that encourages young people to think about all the things they have learnt on their placement, and to disseminate that into a podcast and written piece for their CV. We also included training in interview techniques and how to use audio recording equipment, which they loved! The groups recorded interviews with each other, describing their week, as well as sound effects from the gardens to help build an aural picture of their experiences.  

The result is two amazing podcasts. We could hear how they had thrived at Wakehurst, working in different areas of the organisation – from marketing, education, and horticulture to the Millennium Seed Bank and the Visitor Centre. (It’s something I’d have loved to have the opportunity to do when I was younger!)

“You’ll definitely enjoy this experience if you’re interested in conserving nature and protecting the planet, because it makes you feel that you’re actually making a difference.”

“My top tips for the next person doing the Horticulture Department would be – just be prepared. You will not want to leave. At least I have not been wanting to leave. And I really want to come back here and volunteer and possibly get a job later on.”

So grab a coffee and listen to the brilliant work of these young people. 


👋 If you’re interested in us augmenting your organisation’s work placements with a Make (Good) Trouble workshop, let us know!

🌳 Wakehurst work placements are open to young people aged 14-18. Contact wakehurstworkexperience@kew.org for information on how to apply.