USA: Award-Winning Radio Project - Radio Rookies

A producer speaks into the microphone, conveying a personal story that will soon air on the radio. His is not the voice of a traditional reporter. It is the voice of a teenager.

Coverage of youth in the media rarely represents what young people are truly facing, thinking and saying. But a group of teenagers in New York City are actively changing that. They’re part of the Radio Rookies, a youth journalism programme at New York public radio station WNYC that provides teenagers with the tools, training and mentors to create stories about themselves, their communities and global issues.

“It was a programme that changed my life,” says Rocky Taleh, 19, a Radio Rookie. “It just showed me that I have a voice and my voice is powerful. It showed me if you know how to use it, you can really make a change.”

Future radio professionals

Since 1999, Radio Rookies has been conducting one or two free workshops a year, mostly in New York’s inner city neighbourhoods and immigrant communities. The workshops, which run between four and eight months in length, provide all the equipment and instruction needed to train young people in radio journalism. The aspiring reporters learn how to conduct an interview, develop a story, craft a script and digitally edit their audio. 

Each Rookie is also paired with a volunteer mentor – a professional journalist who gives the teenager guidance outside the workshop. The mentors take their Rookies on field trips, such as visits to professional broadcast facilities, to help develop the teens’ journalistic and educational interests.

Some of the mentors are themselves alumni of the Rookies programme, demonstrating its success in laying the groundwork for future radio professionals.

Speaking their minds

The Rookies’ completed pieces are broadcast on WNYC, where they are heard by over 1 million weekly listeners and many more online.

“In a city where more than 2.1 million residents are under the age of 20, WNYC believes it is critical that we hear how these young citizens are experiencing the world,” says WNYC President and CEO Laura Walker.

Radio Rookies is a great opportunity for youths to speak their minds and for people all over New York – and around the world – to get a glimpse into their lives.

You can listen to Radio Rookies stories online at www.wnyc.org/radiorookies. 

For information on the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting

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Global - Team up with UNICEF Radio and Voices of Youth to create ‘Digital Diaries’!

The Digital Diaries project is a two-year old initiative based at UNICEF headquarters in New York City. It arose from a mutual desire on the part of UNICEF Radio producer Blue Chevigny and Voices of Youth’s Coordinator Amber Oliver to incorporate children’s perspectives and youth participation into our radio content.  The Digital Diaries project allows children and young people to tell their own stories, without the mediation of adult voices and interviewers.

UNICEF is now inviting local radio broadcasters around the world to get involved in the production of Digital Diaries by young people in their countries and communities. Please read on to learn more.

First-person stories

Digital Diaries bring the stories of individual young people to the airwaves in their own words.  Here’s how it works:  UNICEF Radio identifies a young person through its field offices, Voices of Youth, or a recommendation from an NGO and forms a relationship with him or her.  UNICEF sends a recording equipment package (mini-disk recorder, microphone and headphones) to the youth.  Via telephone and email, Ms. Chevigny trains the youth on how to use the equipment and record good audio, as well as offering general support.    

How to make a good Digital Diary
 
1) Recording oneself.
You want to hear from the Digital Diarists, from the mundane (What do you eat for breakfast?  What is your home life like? Do you like school?) to the profound (What do you think of the world you live in? What are your concerns? What are your hopes and dreams for the future?).

2) Recording the world around you.
The sound of the environment can really help paint a picture in audio.  You need to ask the Digital Diarists to take the recorder with them to as many places they go as they can, and record the sounds there – for example, at school (What does it sound like in the school yard at recess?), at home (What does dinner sound like?) and the marketplace (What is the sound of people selling their goods?).

3) Recording other people in your life. 
Encourage the Digital Diarists to document the other people in their lives with interviews. They can talk with their grandfather or little brother, with friends at school or with strangers on the street. The young interviewers ask their subjects whatever they are interested in knowing – whether that’s what the interviewee thinks about AIDS prevention or whether she has a boyfriend.  Anything that’s of interest to the Digital Diarist is important.

This is the ideal way to get to know the Digital Diarist, without having an agenda about who that person is, or what they should say or think.  Digital Diaries are a way for young people to tell the world who they are.  If a girl in Ghana is creating the diary, you want a girl the same age in Sweden to be able to listen to it and hear what separates her and that Ghanaian, and – perhaps more important – what they have in common.

“It’s a great programme because for the young people involved, it’s a way to build new skills that they can take in their adulthood” said Ms. Chevigny. “UNICEF radio has also been able to tap into new, refreshing and unrehearsed content from around the world”

The UNICEF radio project is still small, and there is special focus on each Digital Diarist as he or she is working, one-on-one and one at a time, so that each diary is unique and true to the young person participating.  These are real stories, and that’s what makes them good.  Unfiltered and unrehearsed as young people generally are, we have found you get really refreshing content – usually something that you don’t expect.

For more information, please contact:

Blue Chevigny
UNICEF Radio
UNICEF New York
(212) 326-7370
bchevigny@unicef.org
www.unicef.org/radio

To hear examples of the Digital Diaries

For information on UNICEF Radio

For information on UNICEF Podcast

For information on the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting

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Moldova: Innovative Youth Radio and Youth Media Profile

Youth Media Profile

Cornel Comendant is a 19 year old and first year student at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences in the State University of Moldova. In the first edition of Media Magic Digest, he talks about his experience as a volunteer working with the youth radio team at the Youth Media Centre in Moldova.

Getting started

In a local newspaper, I read an ad about radio journalism training courses organized by the Youth Media Centre (YMC), and I applied!  After completing the courses I entered the editorial team of the school newspaper in my Lyceum. The following year I was selected to be editor-in-chief of the school newspaper Alacritas.

When I finished the radio journalism courses, I was told that I could volunteer at YMC. At the time I wasn’t interested in assuming more responsibilities. After a year, in March 2006, I phoned the YMC Director Veronica Boboc to ask if I could come to YMC to explore and probably to get involved in some of the activities. Veronica agreed! In two weeks I was part of a radio team that broadcast the ‘Laboratorul Tineretii’ show at the municipal station, Radio Antena C. I liked that activity right from the beginning, because I found that people listen to you and help you when you need it, and at the same time I’ve learned many things from them.

The calling

I started making new friends and learned how to be a good volunteer, and then I met Andrei Mâtu, our sound editor, and learned from him how to better edit sound bites and identify voices for a good public service announcement (PSA) or a good broadcast. At the youth radio station, I’ve discovered my voice and my vocation. (talking and talking without stopping). After being inspired by YMC activities, I’ve decided to apply at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, and I’ve succeeded. This summer I was accepted to study there.

Continuing on 

I’ve been involved in many activities at YMC, including a PSA workshop held by the international trainer Steven Youngblood from Park University, USA. I was assigned to be the sound director (I like how that sounds). At the workshop I had to help young participants from local radio studios all over the country to produce PSAs and a 30-minute broadcast for Radio Antena C. In my opinion it was a successful experience because everything was produced and broadcast as planned.

Innovative Youth Radio

The Youth Media Center hosts ‘Youth Voices’, a radio studio for the production of programmes, broadcast and public service announcements for youth by youth. The Youth Media Center was opened in 2003 by the Chisinau Municipal Department for the Protection of Children’s Rights in an effort to create an open and friendly space for disadvantaged children and youth in the Telecentru District of Chisinau, Moldova. The Centre works to provide young people the opportunities and tools to freely express their opinions and actively participate in issues that affect them.

The radio studio began its activities in March 2003 with a training course in radio journalism with over 50 young participants between the ages of 16-18. It currently has four working rooms, including two computer rooms for sound recording, a production mounting room and a training room. The mounting room has a computer, a command desk, phones, microphones and other equipment for producing and broadcasting.  The young journalists – all Youth Media volunteers who graduated from radio journalism courses – participate in the production of the weekly broadcast for youth, ‘Laboratorul Tineretii’.

On air

The 30 minutes show ‘Laboratorul Tineretii’ projects energy, dynamism, information and a diversity of opinions. The producers find original ways to tackle topics of interest to their peers, using attractive radio segments with reportage, human interest stories, polls, radio drama and even innovative ‘radio movies’. The musical segments aim to develop culture among young listeners by offering diverse styles of music. The segments are all produced by young people split into 5 teams comprising approximately 50 youth radio journalists. The competition among them inspires the quality and originality of their media outputs. 

The show is an experimental field for young people from Chisinau and some localities from capital’s suburbs.Through this broadcasting project, young journalists motivate their peers to get involved in solving their own problems and to avoid risky behaviours.

What are they talking about?

Young journalists talk about their free time, rights and responsibilities, child labour, drug addiction, sexually transmitted diseases, health services for youth, high school life, computer technology, literature, vacation opportunities, student-teacher relations, conflicts with parents and peers, and many other topics of general interest.  

Who is listening? 

All broadcasts and public service announcements, produced exclusively in the Romanian language, target young people – including those who come from socially vulnerable families in Chisinau and rural localities. Teachers and parents, youth workers, public administration representatives, clergy and other community members also listen to the broadcast.   

How is it being broadcast?

Programmes produced by Youth Media Centre volunteers are broadcast at the municipal radio station Antena C, which covers two-thirds of the territory of Moldova, public station Radio Moldova and the school radio network.
 
Where does it get its funding?

The Media Center for Children and Youth is supported by the Chisinau Municipal Department for the Protection of Children’s Rights, with financial support by UNICEF Moldova and the Government of the Netherlands.

For more information on the Youth Children Center, contact:

Veronica Boboc
Director, Youth Media Center
St. Drumul Viilor 30/2
MD – 2021 Chisinau
Republic of Moldova
Phone/fax: 373.22 73 14 52
boboc_veronica@yahoo.com
http://www.centrulmedia.md/

Information about getting involved in youth broadcasting activities or the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting

Information on how to produce quality radio features or Digital Diaries

Read about another example of international radio producers working with young people

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Somalia: Future Somali leaders take to the airwaves

The Youth Broadcasting Initiative engages young broadcasters in building local media that better address community information needs and strengthen the voice of youth in Somalia. Supported by UNICEF Somalia, the project was founded in 2003 in partnership with the Youth Development Organization (YODO) and Puntland Student Association (PSA), both based in Bosaso, the commercial capital of the Puntland region.

Why radio?

The concept of the Youth Broadcasting Initiative was born out of the work of YODO and PSA. Both organizations gather young people to discuss issues facing their communities. Both believe that providing young people with a means to express themselves through media will give them a clearer and more informed voice on these issues.

Thus the main aims of the Youth Broadcasting Initiative are to:

• Strengthen youth capacity in the media
• Upgrade youth journalists’ skills in the production of radio programmes
• Enable youth to reach out to the community with their programmes.

Equipped with their new skills, some 200 young producers trained by the Youth Broadcasting Initiative have produced about 30 radio programmes so far. Youth radio has become an important force in mobilizing the different communities of Puntland on issues of common concern.

The radio programmes created through the Initiative are youth-to-youth productions. Street children and school-age youths are interviewed and their voices are broadcast on the children’s programme, ‘Barnaamijka Caruura’, usually in 15-minute segments.

The programmes have been broadcast by numerous local radio stations in Puntland, reaching communities in Bosaso, Garowe and Galkaio. ‘Sanhanka Bulshada’, one of the top programmes to emerge from the Initiative, is heard on the Somali Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Galkaio.

Investment with a high payoff

To help produce each youth radio programme, a technical expert from the Youth Broadcasting Initiative provides young journalists with training, guidance and support, while YODO and PSA assist with editing. The production cost per programme is about $180.

Given such a small budget, the Initiative has been quite successful in reaching the vast Puntland region with young voices talking openly about issues such as HIV/AIDS.

The Initiative still faces some challenges. As it becomes successful, there is a need for more training in the various aspects of production. And the project is looking ahead towards incorporating new video technologies into its work. But the challenges are far surpassed by the personal rewards the Initiative brings to its participants.

Project coordinator Abdulweli Osman Mohamed says the young producers are recognized not just by their peers but by the local community as well.

“The Youth Broadcasting Initiative has influenced my life tremendously,” said one of the participants. “The outcomes have been beyond our expectations. We are very excited to continue youth radio programmes.”

Contact details for the Youth Broadcasting Initiative:

Abdulweli Osman Mohamed
 tel. 002525-736528, e-mail balli899@hotmail.com

Mohamed dek Abdurahman Jama
tel. 002525-725123, e-mail mc_calanside@hotmail.com

Jairus Ligoo
Communication participation and protection section
UNICEF Somalia
jligoo@unicef.org

For information on the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting

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