Thursday 15 Mar 2007
NO MESSIN'! AT HULL ART PROJECT
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Young people who got the No Messin'! message to stay away from railway lines at art workshops in Hull attended a prize giving on 14 March.
Workshops were held last November at youth centres at the Hessle Road Network, Ainthorpe, and Setting Dyke to promote the rail safety message through art. Young people were taught new techniques from professional artists and entered a competition to design a poster promoting the No Messin' message.
Designers of the winning posters were presented with MP4 players at the Hessle Road project.
"The young people involved in this project should be really proud of themselves. They have produced some very professional pieces of art work with a very strong and clear message," said Ruth Drake, Youth Arts Co-ordinator at the Hessle Road Network.
The project was a culmination of previous urban art workshops which took place over the summer holidays. These included dance, music and fashion design.
Sarah Daniels led photography workshops at the Hessle Road Network. She said: "The young people thought about how a tragic accident caused by trespassing on the tracks would affect the whole family, in particular the young person's mother. They learnt how to operate the basics of digital imagery, photoshop manipulation and how to present posters. The end results were very powerful."
The No Messin'! campaign promotes activities which young people can get involved with, rather than trespass on the railway.
Network Rail's Dyan Crowther, Route Director for Network Rail, said: "The young people who use the railway as a playground do so because they think they've got nothing else to do. Network Rail is committed to preventing pointless tragedies and No Messin'! aims to show young people that there is a range of activities available to them which - unlike playing on the railway - don't involve the risk of injury, disfigurement and death."
In addition to the No Messin'! campaign Network Rail has a dedicated Railway Crime Education team which works closely with other parts of the railway industry, offering railway safety information and visiting schools, youth offending teams, youth clubs and local authorities throughout the UK.
Notes to editors
The prizes were won by Hannah Thompson, and Katie Hilton both from the Hessle Road Network.
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