Pop sensation Lady GaGa and award-winning N-Dubz will perform at an exclusive gig in Manchester on 13th July for thousands of volunteers. For its second year, Orange RockCorps, the music-led volunteer programme, will give people in Manchester and London the chance to earn a money-can’t-buy ticket to an all-star gig in their home city in return for four hours hard graft at community-based charity projects.
The Programme will continue with a series of four-hour projects in Paris, followed by a gig for volunteers at Le Zenith on 2nd October.
To launch this year’s expanded programme, N-Dubz will today swap the mic for the shovel to help volunteers at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, East London, transform a deconsecrated cemetery into a woodland retreat for nearby residents. The hip hop three-piece will join forty young volunteers for a four-hour project that will involve chopping down trees and hacking back centuries of overgrowth.
Meanwhile, volunteers in Manchester will take part in a four-hour project at Hulme Community Garden Centre – a charity that addresses poverty, joblessness and climate change – in a deprived area of the city near Moss Side. During the four-hour project, volunteers will paint murals, plant vegetables and build pathways made from recycled glass.
Both launch projects address the social issues – run-down urban environments, climate change and lack of job opportunities – that new research by Orange RockCorps reveals young Britons to be most concerned about. The research, in which more than 1,500 young Britons participated, examines the impact of the recession on young people’s attitudes to society. Over forty percent of 16-24 year olds feel that the downturn has given them a better sense of perspective on the issues that really matter, with a more than a fifth saying that the recession has actually inspired them to make more of a difference in their community.
Lady GaGa and N-Dubz will perform alongside other star acts and DJ’s at the Manchester Apollo on 13th July in the first part of a five-month programme. Further acts for Manchester and a new stellar line-up for London’s Royal Albert Hall (26th September) will be announced in coming months. Each of the shows will feature an eclectic line-up of international acts.
Eight thousand Britons and five thousand Parisians will take part in up to 150 charity projects over the summer. All volunteers are encouraged to strike up long-term relationships with local charity partners that include Lifeshare, The Mersey Basin campaign, Nacro, without the lure of a gig ticket.
Last year, 5,000 young people in the UK took part in Orange RockCorps, earning tickets to see the stellar line up Busta Rhymes, Ludacris, The Automatic, John Legend, Feeder, Lethal Bizzle and Guillemots perform at the Royal Albert Hall. Collectively, volunteers worked 20,000 hours at 55 projects, helping 41 charity partners. 96 percent of those who took part last year intend to volunteer on an Orange RockCorps project again, and 57 percent said they would volunteer for their local community without the incentive of a ticket.
The Orange RockCorps programme will also be amplified via a partnership with Sony Ericsson.