The Mighty Creatives at the World Summit on Media

Reflection

2010-06-21T01:39:00.000-07:00

Jemma:

Caroline and I recorded our final reflection thoughts on the week prior to the Gala Dinner on Thursday evening:

We'll be looking at what we've found out over the past week and working with the rest of the TMC team to make changes in the way we work.

Safely Landed

2010-06-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

Both Jemma and I are back in Blighty, alive and well. A really busy, exciting, sociable and stimulating week! We are both tired but buzzing with new ideas that we're looking forward to sharing with you all back home. See you soon!

Youth Moving Youth Policies Forward

2010-06-17T04:46:00.001-07:00

The Global Youth Council have just been Skyping with a group of young people in Serbia to find out their issues with media to include in their final summary of their proposed declaration at tomorrow's closing ceremony.

The Global Youth Council have been Skpying with a group of young people in Nepal too.

Radijojo

2010-06-17T02:56:00.000-07:00

Caroline:

Radijojo is a Berlin-based organisation that works across the globe in over 100 countries. They work mainly through partnership and using a range of social media platforms.

They categorise their content on their website by topic and geography. The themes are decided on by young people and people can send podcasts, recordings on mobiles etc. It can all be achieved with low-tech options, as they work in many developing countries who don't have access to high-tech equipment.

Radijojo doesn't have its own frequency but either airs work on the web or uses its network of Community radios across the world to broadcast the young people's contributions. These partnerships work well, as the community radios are happy to have the content that Radijojo provides. Their partnerships work on a social franchising model - in a not-for-profit context.

Radijojo has a set of formulas, standards and values that they ask others to sign up to and this could be anything from a school to a larger community organisation. They are exploring broadcasting straight to mobile phones to give them another outlet, but the technology isn't quite there yet.

They carry out workshops and projects in German schools and community settings. Often, they link up with other countries and exchange stories about their lives. The interaction with this personal content is key.

A separate project called "One Laptop One Child" delivered by an NGO aims to provide children in developing countries access to technology that can be made suitable for their needs e.g. dust proof laptops and solar charging. These kinds of projects are helping the kinds of link up programmes that Radijojo initiate.

The conversations between the young people in different countries can also lead to more direct action. Young people often suggest ideas for ways in which they can make each other's communities better. For example, a boy on a school council in Berlin, suggested that if the children that they were communicating with in Nigeria had access to a camera and a cutting tool that this would help them advocate for change in their communities. This was the beginning of something larger.

Young people send in reports about all kinds of issues, from a girl in Australia reporting about the bush fires to children in Gambia sharing the plight of farmers through desertification.

Another important aspect about Radijojo is the way they run their organisation. They train unemployed migrants and young people in Berlin who help them to do their work. In exchange, they give them references, relevant skills and confidence.

Some really great ideas here for personal exchanges, powerful story telling leading to action and innovative partnership work.

More later...

2010-06-17T02:42:00.000-07:00

Young video journalists from Karlstad are documenting the Summit and here is a comedy clip of their work:

2010-06-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

Blogging in action: Jemma sharing TMC's journey live from the Summit.

Workshop overload: Caroline deep-in-thought about which session to go to next.

David Buckingham from the University of London giving a key note speech on living in a digital world.

Caroline's first day

2010-06-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

As you saw from the video, my first session at the World Summit was about Kids News Network. To summarise in text, here is what they do:

- KNN are driven by two things: the desire to promote freedom of expression around the world and the Rights of the Child - to be informed.

- they provide a support structure to enable countries all over the world to set up their own news programme for young people. They help prepare the ground, train people, help make it sustainable, ensure good quality through qualitative research.

- It's about taking children and young people seriously, giving them a platform to give opinions about the news, shape the news and share the good news stories about young people.

- There's no "one size fits all" model for how they set up the programme. It can be commercial, funded or a combination of both. They have some funding from the Dutch government. It depends on the country, but it takes on average 2.5 years to set up.

Mostly they are working in difficult situations - in areas of great poverty, conflict etc. See the website for where they work.

- It doesn't always work. In Afghanistan or example, they started the programme full of hope, but the state broadcaster was taken over by religious fundamentalists. The women were fired. The editor in chief had to flee to India with her family. She is still there.

Another story stuck with me. In Burma, they have to broadcast underground, because of the Burmese regime.
The journalists are from Thailand and the children have to wear masks when they are on camera. But children's interests can be the same all over the world, no matter where they come from:

"I want to know everything about democracy, medicine and Manchester United". Burmese boy, aged 10.

Leicester Wave at the Summit

2010-06-16T04:01:00.000-07:00

Jemma and Caroline proudly showing off Leicester's Wave - the local newspaper supplement produced and managed by young people!

We'll be sharing the Wave with the young people at the University who are producing a daily newspaper on each day of the Summit.

There are so many sessions that it's impossible to attend them all so young reporters have been roaming in and out of sessions taking photos and speaking to delegates about their experiences.

Social Media Experiment

2010-06-16T02:31:00.000-07:00

Jemma:

Caroline and I have started day 2 of the full workshop days with a session on Social Media for All.

To see our social media experiment - http://www.themightycreatives.com/news/world-summit-experimenting-with-social-media/

Here at last!

2010-06-16T01:25:00.000-07:00

Well after a 17 hour journey (a cancelled flight from Birmingham, much queuing, followed by a re-route via Dusseldorf), I finally found Jemma in our hotel in Karlstad at 11.30pm.

Comfortable in her pyjamas by then, we decided that there wasn't time to get to the other end of town for the last half hour of the opening celebrations. Never mind.

The air here is fresh. You can really feel the difference in the quality. The quality of conversation and learning has been mostly fresh too.

This freshness seems to have given us energy and made us pretty hardcore! Yesterday, Jemma and I packed in 14 sessions between us, reaching saturation levels by 7.30pm when I finally said "enough's enough" and tried to contact my family via Skype. However, yesterday was fraught with technical difficulties for me, hence no blogs until now and a one way conversation on Skype!

Just got time before my next session to upload a talking heads of my first session yesterday:

Kids News Network (Ole Chavannes), Free Voice's Kids News Network, The Netherlands

Check him out at www.henry.k12.ga.us/pges/knn/ or www.freevoice.nl/extras/napa/index.html

Refugee journalists and a healthy-eating cookie monster

2010-06-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

Jemma:

Today (Tuesday) was the first full day of workshops. Caroline and I had our sessions planned out so that we could cover as many areas as possible.
It's a pretty packed programme but there are a few gems that I'm really looking forward to and I was excited to start with:

'Entrepreneurship and Journalism with Young Refugees'
Presenters Jan Vincens Steen, SteenMedia.no and Paal Stensaas, Markhi AS, of Norway, have bags of experience and expertise in media and entrepreneurism and they gave a great lecture about a news corporation set-up with young Somali's.

Headline facts:

- Hagadera News Corporation was set-up in the largest Somali refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya.
- This has helped young people use their freedom of speech and build their own business.
- Jan and Paal produced a manual for the young people to follow as a guide to writing news articles.
- They explained the importance of inviting the parents to find out about the opportunity particularly with young Muslim girls.
- It's also important to explain journalistic ethics around story ideas and investigations.
- The pair set-up a similiar programme in Norway and created a Writer's Visa which is a certifcate of the qualifications/skills the young people learn during the programme.

Jan and Paal were very interested in TMC's work and look forward to hearing from me in the future about working with refugee groups in the East Midlands.

This was a fantastic start to the workshops!

I went to the room where they were holding the 'Digital Tourist' workshop but it was more about showing you how to add/upload content to social networking sites etc with the aid of young people.

So, quite basic information which I already know about and so I chose to go to the 'Children, Media and Democracy' lecture instead followed by the 'Invisible Marketing Towards Children' lecture.

The second highlight of today was:

'Sesame Workshop: Building Healthy Habits for Life'
Presenter Patti Miller, Sesame Workshop, USA gave a great presentation on how the media is a powerful tool for education.

The bright presentation was a light relief from some of the dry lectures I'd been through that day.

Sesame Workshops deliver education to groups with the least access to educational tools and they aim to improve knowledge, attitudes and skills to deal with situations in society such as HIV, for example.

Since 2004, the workshops have been focusing on child obesity in the States and they had to re-invent one of the streets much loved characters - Cookie Monster.

This was one of the video clips Patti showed us during the presentation. It shows a news reporter interviewing the popular muppet who has learnt that cookies are a some times food rather than an all time food.

I'm intrigued to find out if the UK delivers any Sesame workshops and if so what social or community issues it might help to address.

'Promoting Online safety 'across Europe and beyond''
Presenter Janice Richardson, Insafe, European Schoolnet, Belguim, gave an interesting talk about the responsible use of the web rather than just the safety of it.

Janice spoke about the many opportunities of the web but also demonstrated the many challenges/risks that counter-balance them.

Opportunities
- global library on demand
- multi-media learning content
- creativity - user generated
- new socialization opportunities
- mobile - anywhere
- virtual worlds

Challenges/risks
- no accountability
- cut/paste - no learning. Zapping (which I think means copying)
- photo misuse, privacy
- discerning friends
- bullying
- location - risk
- violence

Caroline will update you with the many lectures and speeches she attended today shortly.

We spent the evening in the company of DK, from the Wales-based MediaSnackers, who'll be giving a talk on social media tomorrow (Wednesday).
And Patti Miller (as mentioned above).
Thanks for a great evening all. It was nice to discuss some of the issues we've touched on in the workshops in more detail.

Looking forward to social media workshop tomorrow along with delving into ethics of children's media and catching up with the Global Youth Council on their priorities.

Opening Ceremony

2010-06-14T11:38:00.001-07:00

Karlstad University - opening ceremony for the World Summit on Media for Children and Youth.

The opening of the week long conference saw more than 1,100 delegates and presenters come together at the university for a very warm welcome from the city of Karlstad and Sweden as a whole.
The opening speeches and performances was followed by a free smorgasbord!

Workshops start on Tuesday.

First day/night in Karlstad

2010-06-14T01:05:00.000-07:00

Jemma:

God Morgan from Karlstad, Sweden!

I flew out yesterday (Sunday) from Heathrow and transfered from Stockholm to Karlstad in the afternoon. In the short ride over from the capital in a quaint little propeller plane I met many of the speakers and guests who'll be going to the Summit from today (Monday).

It was nice knowing there were other people in the same position and despite the many different languages everybody seem to be talking to one another.
I met Mami Komaya a research professor from Tokyo who happened to be staying at the same hotel as me (Clarion Hotel Plaza). We shared a taxi with two men from Brazil who are over here on business from the airport to the hotel in the city.

My first evening here (Sunday) I took the chance to explore a few of the streets nearby and stopped for a bite to eat. I ended bumping into the UK Youth Media Council group who are staying in a hostel a few yards away.

This morning (Monday) after breakfast I decided to venture further and followed a map to one of the many lakes here in Karlstad.

There are some breathtaking views out here:

I'll be heading to the opening of the World Summit at Karlstad University at 1pm (midday UK time) - watch this space for more updates!

Making links with the Somali community

2010-06-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ashkir, Jemma and Abdikayf at the SOCOPA (Somali Community Parents Association) centre in Evington, Leicester.

One of the workshops I'm really excited about after reading it is entitled "Entrepreneurship and Journalism with young refugees."

With over two years experience as a reporter myself, I was really keen to see how journalism might help enhance a young refugees life.

But I also thought it would be a great opportunity to connect TMC with existing communities in dense multi-cultural places such as Leicester city centre.

After a quick Google search I discovered SOCOPA (Somali Community Parents Association) in Leicester. Their website talks about running youth activities and after-school clubs and I wanted to find out more.

I finally got to put a face to the name I'd been emailing for the past fortnight today when I met Abdikayf, the centre's manager and youth worker Ashkir.

The pair were so welcoming to me and TMC's Participation Manager, Amanda McLaren, they even invited us for a game of table tennis with the young groups!

Ashkir is helping a group of 13 to 25 year-olds set-up a Somali newsletter for their community and surrounding area.
They're really interested in the work that we do at TMC and we look forward to working with them in the future.

We'll be speaking to them again after our visit to the summit and hopefully meeting up with young groups at the centre too.

Giving young people a voice

2010-06-03T01:03:00.000-07:00

Jemma:

I wanted to give young people in the East Midlands the chance to be a part of our journey too.
So, after looking at the various workshops/seminars we'll be going to in Karlstad, I thought it would be a great idea to share the opportunity to interacte with media professionals and young people out there.

We want to take young people from the East Midlands on a 'virtual' trip to the summit.
My idea is to talk to young people about media, their issues with media and children and what they think the future looks like.

I'll then share their voice with everyone at the summit workshops and I'll be blogging the week to keep people up-to-date with what's happening, who we speak to and what they have to say in return.

But, where to start?

Young people's voice

I've been volunteering for my local youth council (Oadby&Wigston) for over a year and I knew they would love the chance to share their voices with a global audience!

At May's meeting I spoke to the group about the summit and gave them the option to give me their ideas/thoughts or questions by writing in a scrapbook, recording a video/podcast or taking photos.

I decided to visit the Leicestershire Youth Council (CYCLE) too. This was a much larger group of young people, who were all very inspiring and had a lot to say about issues around media.

A big thanks to both groups for sharing their ideas with me. I'll be taking the scrapbook, camcorder, dictaphone and camera to the workshops in Karlstad to share your voices with others.

I'll also be asking young people at the summit to feedback on your ideas and I'll post on here during the event so you can keep track of what people say in response to your ideas.

UK Youth Media Council

One of the workshops in Karlstad is entitled "Youth Moving Youth Policies Forward" and I wanted to find out more about this so I contacted the presenter of the session Susana Giner (Institute for Global Ethics UK).

Susana explained that the workshop will be for the youth councils from 8 countries to come together to form a Global Youth Council. She had just set-up the UK Youth Media Council, which includes five ambitious young people aged 18-24.
I was invited to their first meeting on May 20 at the British Youth Council building next to London Bridge.
Susana also said the Global Youth Council will be creating a "Global Youth Media Declaration" at the summit and I was keen to find out more so I went along to the meeting.

UK Youth Media Council (and me!): Back Row - Tom, Tom, Richard. Front Row - Uma, Theone and Jemma (me).

Global Youth Media Declaration

Each of the 8 youth councils from across the world have been asked to come up with five key issues around media and children.
They will all pool their issues together to form five global issues which will make up the declaration.
The declaration will be a list of recommendations for media outlets/organisations and professionals to pledge towards.

For instance, committing to showing ten per cent less of their usual negative news coverage. But that's just an example of mine.

It'll be great to see how the 8 groups come together as one at the summit.

Have YOUR say
If you're a young person and you want to have an input into this event or want us to share your voice please get in touch (jemma@themightycreatives.com) or comment on this post!

The World Summit and TMC

2010-06-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

(left-right) Caroline and Jemma.

Jemma:

The Mighty Creatives (TMC) are always looking for new and exciting ways to engage with young people and to offer them opportunities to get involved. When I came across the World Summit on Media for Children and Youth I saw a potential for TMC to connect young people in the East Midlands with those around the globe plus a chance for us to explore media education and creativity.

Just to give you a bit of context here's some information about the summit:

World Summit on Media for Children and Youth
Karlstad, Sweden, June 14-18 2010.

"World Summits are held every three years and provide a forum for producers, broadcasters, regulators of media for children and other professionals and community leaders committed to the improvement of quality media for children." www.wskarlstad2010.se

There will be around 1500 people from 80 countries at this year's event including children and young people, who will be preparing for a new media 21st century.
It's an opportunity to network, to be a part of debates, to be interactive and be a part of workshops by sharing your ideas, experience and expertise.

Objectives

To achieve a greater understanding of developments in children's media around the world
To raise the status of children's media
To draw to the attention of key players in broadcasting the importance of issues related to children
To promote a charter of guiding principles in children's media
To ensure the provision of programs for children will be guaranteed as the communications revolution proceeds
To assist in the developing world to provide opportunities for quality children's media in the future

Background

The summit started in Melbourne, Australia in 1995 and has since travelled to London, Thessaloniki, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and now Scandinavia - Karlstad, Sweden.

The following is an extract from www.wsmcf.com - World Summit on Media for Children Foundation:

The world summit movement was initiated by Dr Patricia Edgar (founder of Australian Children's Television Foundation).

It was recognised that programming for children was changing and under threat. Children's programming could not remain a purely domestic issue or survive with the values and objectives that industry professionals believed should apply.

A global forum for the exploration of the issues was essential and World Summits were born.

World Summits are global conferences which provide a forum for the media industry, educators and other professionals committed to the improvement of media for children. They are hosted by independent groups and organisations which support the aims and objectives of the World Summit movement.