A “garden gallery” created by young Wearside carers has been opened by Julie.

The art installation, based at the Southwick headquarters of Sunderland Young Carers, was developed by a dozen carers over the summer.

“I was really impressed by the gallery, and enjoyed hearing about the individual stories behind each piece of artwork,” said Julie following the opening ceremony.

“It is a really fantastic piece of work, and one which Sunderland’s young carers should be very proud of.”

Artist Michelle Wall worked with the 12 carers on the garden gallery project after receiving a £1,000 grant from the Cultural Spring’s Your Art programme.

Michelle said: “I was aware of the amazing work these extraordinary young people do and really wanted an opportunity to work with them.

“We decided it would be a great idea to create a garden gallery at the centre and have been producing artwork over the past few weeks to do just that.”

Michelle, who graduated from the University of Sunderland with a degree in Fine Art in 2010, “thoroughly enjoyed” the experience of working with the young carers.

“Hopefully, over time, more carers and young carers can add their work to it and create a lasting and changing collaborative work of art,” added Michelle.

Graham Burt, Chief Executive of Sunderland Young Carers, added: “I’m delighted with the garden gallery and would like to thank Michelle for her hard work, and Julie for taking the time to open it for us.”

•  Sunderland Young Carers has a database of about 600 young people, but the number of young people looking after relations or friends is more likely to be about 3,000.