A YOUTH organisation is helping to repair a damaged model installed by a local theatre group.

A 'Hexham Giant' model was installed by the Allendale-based Miscreations theatre group during their Wilding Theatre Project residency week at the Sele.

The project is an investigation into our relationship with the natural world around us, and the group have delivered workshops and performances during a series of residencies across the region.

The aim of the sculptures is that they can be revisited at different times of the year to see how they are becoming ‘wilded’.

After it was attacked recently, Hexham Youth Initiative offered to help repair it.

Rebecca Jameson, director and performer of Miscreations, said: "They got in touch with us and said 'please can we help'. It was a real boost because we were feeling really fed up, thinking 'oh dear people don't want this thing' and 'what was the point' etc, as you do.

"They were really keen to take it over and take guardianship over it a little bit, which is exactly what you hope will happen when you do these projects within a community."

She added: "We're getting together with Hexham Youth Initiative to do some repairs on Thursday, and we're hoping to dissuade people from keeping on doing it. We're going to put up some signage to give them some more information about what it is and who has built it, and to ask people to take care of it."

Despite the damaged sculpture, Rebecca said the residency week went "really well".

"We had a very well-attended public performance," she said. "We had about 70 people there or so, which is pretty good when we were initially thinking we might sell only about 30 tickets.

"People are really enthusiastic about it. I think it's the nature of the performances - the positive green messaging that people are really picking up on at the moment.

"This idea of combatting all this climate doomism with a lot more positive message and trying to do something to inspire kids to have a bit of hope for the future rather than weighing them down with really depressing statistics and 'doomism'.

"It's been a really magical project to deliver and we have had such an overwhelmingly positive response that we're hopeful it's going to go a lot further."

They are delivering the project elsewhere in the region in September, and then hope to take it further afield.