This month the Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages celebrates the diverse languages and cultures of the North East with free activities and resources for North East young people, schools and communities.
Newcastle City Council, International Newcastle, the Association for Language Learning and Durham County Council develop and co-ordinate the annual festival which invites schools, groups and families to engage young people in a wide range of free language and culture sessions, games and creative activities.
Cllr Sylvia Copley, Cabinet Member, A Growing City, Newcastle City Council
The Festival of Languages is a fantastic way to teach children about the diversity of our local area and bring groups from across the North East together. I would encourage all organisations who work with our children and young people to sign up to these great activities and I look forward to seeing all the performances of this year’s festival song.
Cllr Elizabeth Scott, Durham County Council’s Cabinet Member for Economy and Partnerships
This festival is a brilliant way to introduce young people to the role languages can play in the workplace. Learning a new language greatly improves people’s understanding of different cultures and opens up so many employment opportunities in a number of roles, including those with exciting travel prospects. Of course, learning another language can also help to improve your memory and your confidence and it is great fun so I do hope people enjoy everything the festival offers.
Bookings for live events are open now and people can register for pre-recorded activities available all month.
Click here to see the What’s On programme and sign up.
The free programme includes a wide variety of language and culture sessions, activities, games and challenges, as well as resources that people can access anytime or during the Festival.
There are also the Big 3 festival projects which launched in January 2023 and encourage large scale participation. 7-18 year olds in schools and communities across our region can take part in these until the end of March 2023. These are the Festival Song, Just One World (available in 17 languages), Mother Tongue Other Tongue (creative writing activity) and the ‘Where can languages take you?’ poster competition.
New this year are a series of events for professionals and adults around communication and working in multilingual environments, as well as helping schools to develop an international dimension – all taking place in March.
Festival co-ordinator, Declan Baharini, Director of International Newcastle
Our 2021 and 2022 Festivals engaged a total of over 30,000 children and young people and 681 schools and we hope even more will take up the opportunities this year.
There are so many benefits, with children and young people being inspired to learn languages, find out about other cultures and share their own languages and cultures. We hope to help broaden perspectives, promote understanding and help build skills and opportunities for future careers in an increasingly globalised world.
Further information
- You find out more about the Festival and the What’s On programme online here: EYFOLNE23 website
- Find out about opportunities through the Festival’s social media accounts: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
- Any enquiries can be sent to Declan Baharini, Festival Co-ordinator at info@expressyourselfne.com
