About Us
Our Story
Creative Sparks Projects started in 2021 by Kyle BrightSide, as a short term program to work with a clients requirements to engage with young people on a mural design. After the first Creative Sparks Project it was obvious the program excelled in engaging with young people and provided substantial benefits outside the end result of an awesome mural.
So, Kyle developed the program to focus on the benefits for young people particularly disengaged youth from and communities around Australia. To deliver large scale murals that were not only able to rejuvenate public facilities and ugly grey walls, but to engage with young people in the community and develop a strong sense of belonging and important life skills.
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Over the years, Creative Sparks Projects has added a School mural program that focuses on providing access to art and creativity to students from rural and regional communities. And have further developed the Projects to cater for early intervention actions for young people in need of support to develop a sense of belonging and provide an opportunity for these young people to contribute in a positive way to their community.
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This focus has taken us down the path to begin the process of becoming a registered charity in Australia to be able to continue our mission in providing access to arts and creativity and providing opportunities for young people to develop and share their voice to shape their communities. So Australia can thrive in the future thanks to the creativity and positive contribution from the young people of today.
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How We Do It
Creative Sparks projects is about reconnecting young people to their communities through art, creativity and mural projects that revitalises community and public facilities.
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We do this through a 3 tiered approach:
- Collaboration. Working with communities, schools, councils, groups and of course young people to create a story they want to share with the community. A story that will be a legacy peice for young people to be proud of and feel connected to.
- Expression. Creating a supportive and encouraging environment for young people to feel confident to express themselves freely, to develop creative skills for young people to use and encouraging imagination through creative, hands on workshops.
- Contribution. Working with young people to take their story and share it through a visual mural for their community to enjoy establishes a sense of having a contribution to their community. This sense of contribution creates an investment into the community, to be part of the community and see it thrive because they have an emotional connection to their community. An opportunity to provide a contribution demonstrates to young people they have value to offer and are wanted by the community.
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This approach allows Creative Sparks Projects to seamlessly integrate into communities, provide a service to cater for young peoples needs and deliver an end result that benefits the entire community and SPARKS the beginning of young people seeking to further contribute to shaping their community and our country because they feel a strong sense of belonging. This builds a feeling of acceptance within communities, which will help direct young people away from negative social interactions and towards continuing positive actions within their communities.
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Meet the Team
Creative Sparks Projects is a small but dedicated team seeing to our mission to inspire young people and change the trajectory of their lives.
Founder/ Director
Kyle 'BrightSide' Wakeham
Kyle founded CSP to provide opportunities for young people to become involved in their communities and to really explore creativity and self expression. Kyle has been a professional artist since 2015 and brings years of experience in creativity, business and art to CSP.
Director
Mark Aidone
Mark previously worked for a fortune 500 company before making the move into the creative sector managing & running several successful management and marketing agencies. Mark brings his years of experience in business, marketing and creativity to CSP.
Secretary/ Director
Cachet Hennequin
A educational professional with over a decade of experience in education. Cachet brings her valuable knowledge of education, curriculum development, student engagement and planning skills to CSP programs.
Aussie young people have so much to offer. We just provide an opportunity for their contribution to shine.
Our Mission
Our mission is to use our Projects to connect young people to their communities and inspire them to share their voices through visual art and creativity to contribute to shaping their community.
Our Vision
Our vision is to see young Ausrtalians from diverse backgrounds, confident to share their voice and make positive contributions to shaping Australian communities for the future, through art, imagination and creativity.
