This was the second project we have delivered in association with Barnardo’s Young Person’s Forum, a group of disabled and nondisabled
young people who believe that you can only live your life to the full when people listen, include and respect each other.

For over six months the Forum’s monthly sessions split up into two groups. One group worked with Joanna Ricketts and Rick Walker for
Cartwheel, while the other group worked with photographers Julian Williams and Jackie Taylor of See Gallery. In both cases, the aim
was to explore the young people’s aspirations for the future.

It proved a real challenge to interpret the brief in an innovative and visually exciting fashion, which could practically engage and
stimulate a group of exceptionally mixed ability.

Joanna produced five ‘Bags for Life’, each one being an imaginative and unique attempt to sum up the groups' ambitions in a particular sphere – work and achievement, our ideal home, travel, leisure and the world we want to live in. The Work bag, for example, was made from a suit jacket, while the Leisure bag was a football, taken apart, turned inside out
and sewn back together, with each of the panels decorated by the young people.

An exhibition of the work opened in the Wheatsheaf
Library in Rochdale in March 2011.