We are looking to commission up to five young Muslim content creators or artists.
The theme for this content is: 'Celebrate what makes you, YOU'.
We chose this theme to reflect young people’s desire to make space for joy and to authentically represent their experiences. Anything you create could reflect on your own mental health journey, faith, culture, sexuality, disability, your joy or anything you think would help young Muslims feel supported with their mental health.
Although the theme focuses on celebration, we know it’s also important for young Muslims to hear about what people are going through, and that includes the downs as well as the ups. So, you may also want to share the more difficult kinds of experiences, challenges, and honest stories that you are comfortable sharing.
Take a look below for more information on the type of content we're looking for.
While this project is aimed towards young Muslims, the content you create can speak to all aspects of your identity. Whether that’s your culture, faith, sexuality, gender-identity, disability or neurodivergence. We want you to know that all aspects of your identity can be celebrated through the content you create.
We know we will never speak to every unique, complex and diverse experience, but the content you create should help young Muslims feel valued and hopeful by witnessing your stories and experiences.
Although our 'Celebrate what makes you, YOU' theme focuses on celebration, we know it’s important for young Muslims to hear about what people are really going through, and that includes the downs as well as the ups. So, you may also want to share all kinds of experiences, challenges, difficulties, and honest stories that you are comfortable sharing.
For example, speaking about quotes from the Qur’an that bring you hope or what Muslim joy means to you.
Hopeful video messages for young Muslims using British Sign Language (BSL). Here’s an example of a BSL video created by Charis.
For example, you might choose to record a visit to the mosque while talking about three examples of how your faith gives you hope or strength.
Join us for an episode of our podcast alongside other young Muslim creators. Here’s an example of a podcast we recorded with Simi, Femi and Jaleel about being Black, Disabled and proud.
For example, a spoken word video, rap or dance. Here's an example of a spoken word piece from Femi and a rap from Josiah.
Write a story about your own personal experience or create a fictional story. This could be an illustrated digital comic book or a written short story. Here's an example of a short story of Black Disabled empowerment from Simi and a digital comic from Jaleel.
In 2022, we ran some insight sessions with young Muslims in collaboration with the Muslim Youth Helpline. The aim was for the participants to shape our future content offer for young Muslims and ensure it met the needs of the Muslim community.
Here are three things young Muslims told us they want to see more of:
Young Muslims told us they want to find other young Muslims who they can relate to and share experiences with.
Young Muslims told us they want to hear about culturally relevant experiences and stories that are authentic, real and followed up with practical advice and hope.
For example, content that celebrates the personal and unique relationship every young Muslim will have with their faith, while highlighting the ups and the downs they might go through.
The young Muslims we spoke with also told us about five major factors that cause them to be disproportionately impacted by mental health struggles. The combination of these factors makes their experience of mental health far more complex. And that’s why we feel this project is so important. Here's what they told us impacts their mental health:
Yes, this work will be paid. Deliverables and fees will be discussed as part of the contracting for this work. All commissioned artists and content creators are responsible for paying their own tax and National Insurance contributions through self-assessment.
Applications are open to individuals aged between 18 and 27 years old. The content you create will be used to serve young people between 11 and 25.
Yes, absolutely. What matters most to us isn’t the size of your social media following, but if you’re able to create content that responds to the themes we’ve outlined on this page.
We also feel strongly that all creators and artists, especially those from racialised communities must be paid fairly for their work. To do this, we have base fees that we use for digital content commissions. This means we are still able to pay less established creators a fair fee for their work and time. For established creators (over 10k followers on your main social media account), we do offer a small additional supplement fee.
We are aiming to get back to everyone by the end of October. Further contracting discussions will then take place from January 2025.
We are hoping to go live on our channels with the content from February 2025. So, we’d ideally receive final versions of content between January 2025 and March 2025. However, the deadline is something we are more than happy to discuss with you. It’s important to us that you feel comfortable with the timelines.
Yes, we’re only able to work with UK-based content creators for this project.
We are looking to go live with the content on our channels from February – April 2025, but we’ll continue to post pieces of content throughout the year.
Yes we have. Throughout 2024, we worked closely with a group of 12 Black Disabled creators and artists. You can find examples of some of the content here.
Yes. Throughout 2022 and 2023, we partnered with the Muslim Youth Helpline to deliver faith-informed advice and information for young Muslims. We knew we need to do much better in supporting young Muslims across, and this project marked the start of our commitment to supporting young Muslims with their mental health.
Something we know is important is the platforming of real stories and experiences from young Muslims. This project is part of our effort to deliver this.
Take a look at our guides for young Muslims.