About Us

Capeesh (Liverpool) CIC is a youth and community development project that seeks to motivate and enable young people (aged 10-25) to acquire and grow skills and confidence; increasing chances of deriving enjoyment and income, through direct or indirect involvement with music.

We work with our collaborators (particularly Harthill Youth Centre and Liverpool Targeted Youth Support Services) to provide music tuition and mentoring to young people who might otherwise find difficulty in accessing such opportunities.

Harthill Youth Centre is a past recipient of UK Music Rehearsal Spaces funding and its full-time youth worker, John Bligh has a city-wide role to develop and support music activities that engage young people.

Capeesh CIC employs young musicians/singer songwriters (aged 18-25 years) on a sessional basis to work as music tutors/mentors. These young people are encouraged to develop skills in music tuition and mentoring in order to provide support to young people (aged 11-17 years), along with improving their own chances of securing employment in music-related fields.

Capeesh CIC (in conjunction with Harthill YC) runs a weekly evening music session on Fridays and regularly holds 'Celebration Sharing Events' in which we encourage young people to perform in front of family members, friends and the wider community. Capeesh CIC also organises events at other venues/public spaces which showcase young people’s talents in music and spoken word. During school holidays we offer music taster activities, music workshops (e.g. in DJing, drumming circle) and extended music learning opportunities.

Capeesh (Liverpool) CIC was formed in December 2017, as a response to a perceived community need.

Our original aims included:

• providing opportunities for young people to engage in music events to showcase their talents

• grow an audience for 'new music'

• work with commercial venues in support of providing such opportunities.

We held a forum meeting early on to seek young people's views on how best to proceed with our aims. We undertook research through social media about how to best support budding musicians and singers. 10 young people attended the forum event and a further 14 young people responded to our research questionnaire. This shaped what we did for 2018 and part of 2019.

During 2019 we developed links with Harthill Youth Centre and the thriving music department at King's Leadership Academy, offering music tuition and performance opportunities to young people through these.

Capeesh CIC’s lead director, Mark Rowley, is a JNC Nationally Qualified Youth Worker, with many years of wide and varied professional youth work experience. His drive, commitment and passion for music has been instrumental in developing the organisation to what it is now. There’s still a long way to go however, if Capeesh CIC is to reach its full potential as a youth music project.

Currently, we have 10 young people (aged 18-25) working or volunteering for us as music tutor/mentor.

The team is playing an active role in informing what Capeesh CIC offers now and in the future. It is our intention to involve them in our planned by-monthly Steering Group meetings and ultimately develop Capeesh CIC into a young person-led project.