Barrow in Furness is in the top 10% of at-risk boroughs to be in poverty and is in the top 20 boroughs to be classed as in current poverty (Guardian 2012, GOV, 2015).

Cumbria is undersupplied with quality artistic outputs and underfunded by champions of the arts compared with other parts of northern England, a situation that needs deliberate, sustained effort to redress.

Often groups try to support young people who are in poverty and don't offer this to adults of any capability who might be struggling with funds to do something creative. Our body is affected by physical, mental and emotional and social health (Holistic Health Model). If your social health is problematic (poverty problems, unemployed, etc) then this can impact on your mental health (e.g. cause stress, anxiety, depression, etc) and physical health (e.g. lose weight, undernourished, etc). Often adults are stuck in a rut, can be depressed and don't have an outlet to just be themselves when they are in poverty. This can be detrimental to the whole family. This is why I want to raise funds to do something different.

Furness Original Productions is a dramatic arts group that create original works by using improvisation and storytelling techniques. The group has been running since January 2017 and have produced an original play in their short time of being put together.

The group compromises of different talent from the local community in Furness. The actors vary in abilities as well as some struggling with their own disabilities. This has brought a great little community together to create new things. What I enjoy about not targeting people with disability problems is that it gets everyone to mix together and bring a new dynamic to performances. This has already brought a unique twist on our storytelling as well as adding very dark humour to our play and recent play developments.

I don't have anything against musicals but this seems to be the only available dramatic option available in the Furness area. Furness Original Productions do not do this. We want people to come along and be more creative by working together to produce unique original works that can be recreated not only on stage but through other media.

After winning the Golden Apple Award in October for best student, I felt the need to encourage others to continue learning new things at a later age (I'm 35 by the way). The drama group won't fix their money problems but will help people do something creative which in turn can relieve peoples stress, help them gain more confidence or even more importantly, forget about what's going on in real life for a couple of hours and have some fun.

The main reason I want to get funding is so that the organisation can pay for the room hire so that people interested in learning and doing something creative do not have to worry about contributing to the payment of the room hire. The funding will provide 3.5 hours a week of room hire for a year which will provide dramatic creative space as well as time for script-writing and creative-writing workshops. Time can also be allocated to learning camera work and filming techniques, which is what I studied at college to win the award. Additional money will go to funding equipment that the company can lease out to start self-funding itself, such as filming and sound equipment, lighting equipment, recording equipment, etc.

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