Youth charity's mission to inspire New Year hope

The charity had a stall handing out free hot chocolate

Ten young artists from the Cuckfield base of the Christian charity Youth With A Mission (YWAM), created the temporary art work as they believe many people found 2016 a difficult year and they wanted to inspire people to embark upon the new year with hope.

Abby Jackson, 20, one of the YWAM artists who set up the installation, said: “2016 was a turbulent, tough year. We were keen to take this opportunity to draw a line under it and invite members of the public to look to 2017 with optimism.”

In the first step of the art installation, members of the public were offered a free cup of hot chocolate.

Next, they were given the chance to write down on a piece of paper what they considered ‘the worst of 2016’, rip up their note and put it in the ‘worst of 2016’ bin.

Finally, each participant was encouraged to write with chalk on a blackboard what they would like to ‘commit to’ in 2017.

The hashtag for the art installation was #ICOMMITTOHOPE.

Ms Jackson explained that the Cuckfield YWAM group is passionate about engaging the public with important questions and has found art to be a really great way of doing just this.

Youth With a Mission is an international charity that focuses on training young people to be missionaries worldwide. There are several bases in the UK.