Samiya is 20 years old and is partially sighted with a condition called Ocular Motor Dyspraxia. Samiya has also been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome since a young age. She has been a member of UCAN Productions since 2019, when she joined UCAN’s drama sessions on zoom during the pandemic.

UCAN Productions is a performance and creative arts cooperative for blind and partially sighted members across the UK. We specialise in arts based creative learning activities which are designed to raise aspirations and improve physical and vocal confidence. The organisation exists to prove that vision impairment is no barrier to success. UCAN has been delivering Arts Awards for the last two years and has been a Trinity Champion Centre since 2022.

UCAN would like to nominate Samiya Houston for her recent Silver Arts Awards achievement. She is the first member of UCAN Productions to achieve a Silver Award. We are incredibly proud of how creative she has been in both the creation of her online blog Silver Arts Award - https://jazzyhandsgirl.co.uk/

the practical implementation of the different parts of each Unit and how her hard work has led her to more of an understanding of her creativity and aspirations for future opportunities and work. Samiya’s Arts Award blog is extremely thorough and she incorporated a plethora of evidence using writing, video, interviews, sound and even mindmaps!

During her award Samiya took the initiative to develop her theatre and arts events reviewing skills, something she is very interested in due to her love of theatre and writing, she has created a review section within her blog Reviews (jazzyhandsgirl.co.uk), as well as posting them on her social media sites:

• Jazzyhandsgirl | Facebook
• Samstageystuff (@jazzyhandsgirl) Instagram
• JazzyHandsGirl (@JazzyHandsGirl) Twitter

Through her excellently written reviews, Samiya has been offered opportunities by a Welsh theatre company and other arts organisations to review their plays and their use of audio description within the plays.

Due to Samiya’s sight loss and Aspergers she has already had many knocks back in life, having been told that she has not been suitable for many further education courses or career options. During the course of her Silver Arts Award we have seen a huge increase in Samiya’s confidence and creativity, both as a writer and as a drama workshop assistant. She has realised that she has the potential to take on a leadership roles within in the arts and become an integral part of the arts community.

What Samiya says about her Arts Award experience

I'm so thrilled to be nominated for these Awards. Completing my Silver Arts Award has been such an enlightening and enjoyable process, as I've learnt so much about different careers in the arts, and all the different ways to get there. Completing my Silver Arts Award has also given me the opportunity to reflect on my own skills in various arts forms, and enabled me to develop my leadership skills as I helped to lead workshops for UCAN Productions for my Unit 2.

My adviser and assessor, Alys has been so wonderful throughout - giving me confidence in my ideas (setting up a blog for my portfolio - which I still use now to write theatre reviews!) and offering plenty of support and advice whenever I've needed it. Her support has been particularly invaluable when I completed the leadership project - she's a workshop practitioner herself, so being her 'apprentice' in a way just felt amazing! I believe that I am much more capable of achieving things than I ever though I was. If you're a young person passionate about the arts, and looking for a new challenge - I'd thoroughly recommend getting stuck in to an Arts Award it can be life changing!