ARTS MEETS ENVIRONMENT FESTIVAL
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Drawings by Festival participants (photo AMEF)

Professional artists, of all disciplines, were invited to submit proposals for workshops suitable for the specified age group and related to the theme 'making the best use of natural and cultural resources' and environmental issues. A number of performance and visual arts' workshops were chosen by the Festival Committee and a first programme, for a six-month period of activities taking place in a number of villages, was distributed.

Due to time constraints for the first year of the initiative, AMEF embraced smaller events already taking place in the Rockingham Forest, during the summer of 2006, providing them with 'added value'. In addition, schools that service the catchment area of the Rockingham Forest are invited to bring selected pupils to a festival day at Rockingham Speedway where artistic activities, with an environmental theme, will promote AMEF to young people whilst providing specialist training in subjects that would not be available as part of their statutory education.

Following this day, a professional theatre group has been commissioned to work in the schools to look at ways in which art can be linked to sustaining the environment and be used to promote ways of getting the community to think more ecologically, also to encourage involvement through an understanding of the wide range of artistic skills that can be incorporated into a multitude of careers and activities.