Working with young people through the arts, music and technology: Emancipating new youth civic engagement

While the value and importance of positive engagement with young people through various models of youth work is well established and seen as constructive, less attention has been paid to the role of the more informal creative models for their civic engagement. Similarly, although youth being listened to and given voice is now accepted as a norm and a right in social policy, in the main it has been only through formalised consultation processes rather than natural community occurring opportunities that this has been organised. This chapter advocates for ways that youth engaged in the arts can be viewed as actors who contribute civically through their involvement in community programmes with others. In this light, the authors further suggest that a wider understanding of youth civic engagement needs to be considered. To illustrate this, case vignettes are utilised from two fledgling and innovative Irish music and music technology based youthwork projects from an Irish NGO (Foróige) namely SoundSurfers and TechSpace, as exemplary of enabling youth to engage and thrive.