For 14 years, we have been shaking it up.
Supporting Global Majority youth to take up space, unapologetically; creating spaces of healing, art, care and radical political education. We want to keep the pressure for change authentically youth-led.
So, in 2025, we have made the considered decision to bring Shake! to a close, with the desire to keep the flame ignited on the work we’ve done, while passing the baton onto other projects. Shake went from a little star in the landscape to a constellation of Shake family/projects. Now we’re going supernova.
We feel that this is an appropriate time for us to depart with joy, knowing that the Shakers! we’ve worked with are our legacy and history.
(We realise this is big news. Let’s pause for a second and take a breath together.)
It is rare for Global Majority-led projects to choose their ending. Many of our projects come to an abrupt, unplanned, unwanted end due to lack of funding or to burnout and a hostile environment. We really want to insist on how this is a chosen end, because it makes sense: politically, strategically, and not from a lack of anything, or burn out.
As the small-scale project that Shake! is, we have made a significant impact: creating new radical spaces for and by young Global majority people, taking up and challenging space in the very white landscape of youth work. We pioneered a new ethos where every course and event was made by the Shakers who are involved. Shake! started in 2010. In 14 years we’ve held 16 courses, 11 showcases, several international trips and various performances, multiple trainings and partnerships. We created the Shake! Trilogy of publications to share our methodology and have been part of, or featured in, many other publications.
In line with what Shake! was always meant to be, these publications were both an intervention on the ever-so-white mainstream charity sector, demonstrating the necessity of political youth work, as well as a vibrant, artistic expression of Global Majority voices.
Our Legacy phase has been our most funded and resourced phase yet, but we do not want to exist just for the sake of existing. We want to resist institutionalisation. One of the issues in the charity sector is organisations continuing to exist with no other aim beyond their original purpose but ‘to exist’.
Shake! has grown since 2010, and so the age of the team and of most Shakers has gone up too. If between 2010 and 2018, the average Shaker was between 16 and 25 years-old, most Shakers and audiences we interact with now are between 20 and 35.
We feel proud and excited to see the number of artists, movement-makers and organisations that were born out of Shake! or share some roots with us. We feel it is time for Shake! to pass the mic to younger, newer projects, so the pressure for change remains authentically youth-led. Shake! was always a catalyst, and now needs to make space for new growth.
Shake! will continue to do our Legacy work until the end of March 2025, where we will wrap up. This includes continuing to share our trilogy of publications and existing work with Shakers! from our most recent courses. We’re also planning a celebration showcase in February 2025 and are working on updating our physical archive – we’ll share more information about both of these things in due course.
We will continue the legacy of Shake! through our trilogy of publications, through our physical archive, our website and social media and especially through all of the people and organisations we’ve had the pleasure of sharing space with.
We’re extremely grateful to our team, both past and present, the partners we’ve worked with, and of course, every person who has engaged with our work. This includes people who have followed our journey on social media and our newsletter, and those who have attended our events and those who have read/ shared/ used our books. But most importantly, to every single Shaker! who has attended and helped shape our workshops, training, showcases and courses. You’re Shake! family.