Hope Book is an interactive digital storytelling project looking at issues surrounding child poverty. The project was commissioned by Children North East and will sit on the all party parliamentary group for poverty website.

The character of Hope was first imagined during a project called Hope’s Diary in which Amy directed a play with Live Theatre’s youth theatre. A group of young carers joined the cast to devise the theatre piece to be performed at the Child Poverty Conference at the Sage Gateshead in 2011 which was commissioned by Children’s North East. The young people stormed the conference in an ‘impromptu’ performance which asked questions about their futures’, their aspirations and what they could hope for. They then had the opportunity to talk to the politicians and councillors in attendance.

The cast were then invited to perform the play at Westminster in the Houses of Parliament.

During the Hope’s Diary project, children from all over the northeast of the UK took photos to document what life was like for them living in poverty. Amy took these photos and all of the information and ideas that had been generated through the Hope’s Diary project to a hack: a 24 hour hack event run by Culture Code, produced by Codeworks to bring cultural organisations who have data together with data-hungry geeks and allow some magic to happen. Using the photographs and the stories from Hope’s Diary, Amy teamed up with games developer Jeremiah Alexander and designer James Rutherford to create A Day Of Hope. It is an interactive online experience where the user is able to see what hope is up to, and to see the challenges she is faced with in her every day life.

The user will be able to interact with Hope and help her to make decisions about money, budgeting and social and family situations. The aim of the project is to raise awareness about child poverty and to allow young people to seek support and policy makers to see the true challenges that young people living in poverty face.