Support the Museum's ambitions to improve access to arts and heritage for young people. 

What is Young Futures? 

In 2022, a group of young people came to us with a mission. They wanted to work with Museum of the Home to offer accessible opportunities to pursue a career in the arts and heritage sectors. 

As Museum of the Home, we exist to reveal and rethink the ways we live, in order to live better together. We believe in putting this mission into practice. That’s why we are working to offer more and more accessible opportunities for young people looking to pursue a career in the arts and heritage sectors. 

Since July 2022, Museum of the Home and the Young Futures Committee have worked together to fundraise for these opportunities through membership, events and challenges. In our first year we raised £6270, which in turn created a two-week paid placement for local young people. 

The problem  

“We believe that there is not enough diversity of background, experience, and thought in the arts and heritage space. People from different and diverse backgrounds face a number of barriers to entry including but not limited to: a deficit of paid entry-level roles, lack of role models, and the sector as an unwelcoming and unappealing space that has never truly opened its arms.” - Will Hanway, Young Futures Founder and Committee member

The solution  

Young Futures believe Museum of the Home offers a great asset: a free way to access our rich, simultaneously personal and universal history of Home. 

There is an entire generation of young philanthropists that are desperate to find ways to give back – to help with their time and money. Overall, what stops them is that they don't know where to start, they don't think they have enough money to make a difference, and the space seems overwhelming. 

Most of all, these people want to help other young people; to pay forward the help they received kickstarting their careers.

How we work 

Young Futures is run by a committee who meets with the Museum every month, alternating between online and in-person at Museum of the Home. We welcome anyone who is interested in joining our committee to find out when the next date is by contacting Kitty Cooke at kcooke@museumofthehome.org.uk 

Young Futures holds a public fundraising event every winter at Museum of the Home, where you will get chance to hear from some of the young people Young Futures supports. We also run smaller ad-hoc events throughout the year.  

What we support

Young Poets

From March to June 2022, professional poet and Hackney local Anthony Anaxagorou worked with a group of young people aged 15 to 25 years old from East London to develop their creative voice.

As part of our Young Futures event in March 2023, three Young Poets performed some of their pieces. They told us:

“The Young Poets project unlocked a passion for poetry from inside me and gave me the confidence to not only write but also perform my work in front of an audience. Since then, my goals for the future have been massively influenced by meeting such talented and inspiring individuals through the project.” - Leo, Young Poet

“Engaging with the Young Poets Project at Museum of the Home was undeniably beneficial for my poetry career. Working with Anthony for an extended period of time gave us compositional skills and methods of thinking against the grain when approaching difficult subjects. I learnt an immeasurable amount about language and power through this project and it was an honour to be invited into an institution like the Museum to critique dominant constructions of history through the poetic medium.” - Tom, Young Poet

Work Placements

During summer 2023, in partnership with Voyage Youth, we hosted two work placement students, Krysiah and Leroy.

They produced a new digital trail concept design with Leroy’s research focusing on technology and wellbeing, breaking down stereotypes about gaming and young people. Krysiah explored the history of gender and care work, shedding light on the lesser-known stories of women in the home through time, including that of the Hackney Ayahs.

As well as this, they set up NatureWatch cameras with Interaction Research Studio in our Discovery Garden to capture urban wildlife and supported the museum’s MATT+FIONA Summer Residency and Free Tea Fridays.

Watch their TikTok videos below.

Get involved with Young Futures

• Join a Young Future Friends of Friends event
• Join the Young Futures Committee
• From just £5 a month, help the Museum offer more opportunities for young people:

Become a member

Make a one-off donation