News
Pudsey Produces the Pounds - 04 Oct 2002
Our Managing Editor Alastair McPhee is delighted that his first engagement since his enforced absence was to go along to BBC Scotland to receive the certificate marking BBC Children in Need's award of £12,000.
The Bishopbriggs based charity had applied for funding from Fraser Falconer and his team to help with its Jailbreakers project. The communication and anti-racism course run by the charity can now go ahead for its third year. Thanks for the second time to BBC Children in Need for their support.
Alastair McPhee in thanking Fraser Falconer Chief Executive of the Scottish arm of BBC Children In Need explained,
The participants in our last Youth Project, the Sound Stuff Workshop, could certainly talk, and how, but they lacked the discipline, commitment, and most importantly, the skills to be heard by the rest of us. At Cue and Review, our digital sound recording facilities, experienced staff, and commitment to enriching the lives of disadvantaged youth enable us to provide a unique experience for these kids. How many 12-16 year olds do you know who have scripted, presented, and recorded their own CD?
Cue and Review Recording Service's Chairman Andrew Lenihan thanked Jackie Bird of BBC Reporting Scotland for her support on the big fundraising night. He then highlighted how the CD itself, which was a radio show for teenagers, by teenagers, is a considerable accomplishment. However, what will really make a difference to their futures are the life skills they learned along the way:
1. How to coalesce as a group and make decisions democratically
2. How to resolve disputes within a team.
3. How to play to individual strengths, compensate for individual weaknesses, and get the job done.
4. How to understand their own prejudices about other races and, more specifically, the challenges faced by VIPs.
Contributing to recording our youth-oriented audio tapes was a big hit. It simultaneously gave them an opportunity to serve their VI friends and raised their awareness of the issues. The newspaper comparison block helped them read media and understand the ways in which it dominates contemporary life, forms (and in some cases deforms) public perception. The visit to the offices of The Big Issue to see how a real magazine is put together was of particular interest. This was especially so for those who had discovered, thanks to the Workshop, an intriguing new career possibility - journalism. For those more interested in the voice production techniques they learned in the studio, new career paths may well be media presenters or sound technicians. You plant seeds and see how they grow!
The participants communication skills were enhanced several ways. They learned that communication involves listening as well as talking, that other people might have ideas worth listening to, and that writing for radio is more fun than writing essays! By choosing their own topics: football, fashion, and funky music, etc, and writing their own scripts, they learned how to articulate their ideas clearly and with sensitivity to the needs and wants of their listeners. Even those not particularly interested in the technical aspects of sound production were fascinated by the neat sound effects you can produce with such everyday items as parcel tape, crisp bags, a shovel, and an electric drill!
What pleased us most, however, was the noticeable increase in self-confidence as the workshop progressed. These kids came with the cockiness and street smarts you'd expect from their ages and backgrounds. But, having mastered the skills necessary to produce the Jail Breakers CD, they left with something more, the solid self-confidence of achievement.
