Our Impact

Bevis is a music producer who grew up in Armidale but is now based in Newcastle. He works alongside Sadini Handunnetti, who provides mentoring support to young people participating in the Hometown program. Together, they recognise that music operates as a powerful tool for young people to connect, share their stories and have fun.

The Hometown program provides young people with the opportunity to work alongside local artists from their community, so far collaborating with Kobie Dee, Tasman Keith, Nate Weatherall, Kapital J, RISSA and Nathan Talakai. Bevis’ Backing the Future grant covered the cost of travel to regional communities, accommodation for the duration of the workshops, and payment for local artists and facilitators assisting the program. 

The pilot series wrapped in June 2023. The Hometown team shared a number of learnings with VFFF:

• This work should be ongoing, not one-off – Hometown seeks to build the capacity of young people to engage with music as a form of storytelling and build their skills to be able to do it by themselves, rather than passing by a town, creating a few songs and then leaving;
• Building local connections is invaluable – the Hometown team recognises the importance of working alongside existing organisations and existing stakeholders in each community, such as Mad Proppa Deadly in Armidale;
• When rolling out workshops, expect each community to be different – a strength of the Hometown program is its ability to be flexible and adaptive to the needs and priorities of each group of young people;
• Listening and responding to youth voices increases engagement – the Hometown team incorporates young people’s ideas into the agenda for each session and the workshop goals are completely youth led.

Bevis has documented the impact of Hometown through a series of videos. Check out the Newcastle video below!