Mediabox

Mix Mediabox funds 32 projects

32 NEW COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANISATIONS RECEIVE FUNDING TO RUN YOUTH-LED MEDIA PROJECTS

Mediabox has announced a new raft of organisations that will share over £570,000 of government funding. 32 organisations from across England have been awarded ‘Mix Mediabox’ grants of between £5,000 and £20,000. ‘Mix Mediabox’ is a funding strand from Mediabox, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) scheme that gives disadvantaged young people a voice.
The 'Mix' strand has been designed for organisations that bring young people from diverse ethnic, economic backgrounds, faiths or areas together. Young people will be provided with the opportunity to make a media project that explores issues from identity and diversity to sense of belonging in their community.
Mix Mediabox is run in partnership by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) to help achieve the Government’s vision for cohesive and integrated communities
To date, over 12,000 young people in England have benefited from the scheme.
Submissions for Mix Mediabox reopen on Monday 25 January 2010. The next deadline will be Tuesday 9 March 2010.
Successful organisations include:

Eclectic Productions UK Ltd – ‘Reprezent Young Champions’ will give a diverse group of 13-19 year olds from Lewisham and Southwark the chance to create their own online youth radio station serving East London. The station will voice issues that are important to them such as gang violence and youth pregnancy. Mentors from MTV and Warner Bros will also be involved in the project.

Ariel Trust Limited – ‘Positive Voices’ is a mixed media campaign that will bring together 30 young people from the Knowlsey area of Liverpool to participate in creative workshops exploring skills from the advertising industry, as well as the basics and practice of photography, graphic design, games design and audio recording and editing.

Muslim Womens Welfare Association – ‘Where I’m from’ is a project involving 40 girls from varying Asian backgrounds, which will focus on the intergenerational experience of Asian girls and young women in Britain from 1999-2009 in comparison to the experiences of their county of origin. The group will be trained in sound recording, interviewing, film production, film editing, script writing, art and design.

Film City Production Agency - Dropinn Channel will enable 20 young people from a youth centre in Belper to create three musical films and documentary pieces exploring issues of crime in their community, and how it is problematic for them and for elderly residents.

Marlowe Academy - Academy FM is a community radio station broadcast in Thanet, a community of severe deprivation, with a population of 129,900. This project will allow 200 young people to design a weekly radio show. They will be trained in the operation of equipment, techniques in radio production, and on-air presentation.

Trinity Mind Body and Soul Limited – F.A.C.E (Fryerns and Craylands Estate) is a film project that will be written and produced by 20 young people aged 13 – 17, who live on two of the most disadvantaged estates in Basildon, Essex. The film will tell the stories of those who moved into The Craylands estate in the 1960’s and the generations that have lived the since.

First Take Video Limited – BreakOUT is an interactive documentary and website project that will bring together a group of 15 Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual teenagers with a group of 15 Heterosexual young people from Liverpool Youth Offending Service. Together they will explore and address the boundaries and barriers of sexuality in today’s society.

Kent Refugee Action Network – ‘Home to Home’ 2010 is an animation project being produced by 45 young unaccompanied asylum seekers aged 14-17 and 15 British young people. The groups will produce five animated films in which they will explore issues of integration as well as learning about one another.

Citizenseye – WAVE will be the first young persons newspaper in Britain. It will be designed, written, edited and managed by with The2, a young persons news agency created by young people and will involve 250 young people from Leicester. WAVE will address issues such as older people, asylum seekers, homelessness, disabilities, green issues, international development and ex-offenders. It will be distributed with the Leicester Mercury each month.

Adullum Homes Housing Association - Adullum Multimedia project will bring together 40 young people aged between 16 and 19 who either live in emergency accommodation or are from the local Orthodox Jewish Community. The young people will produce a drama DVD and documentary dealing with racism and how it affects the community.

Huddersfiled Pakistani Community Alliance – What’s Your Story is a film created by The Pakistani Youth Forum, which is made up of interviews with young and adult residents of Huddesfield. The film aims to showcase a cross section of experiences from successful people who have lived in the area since the 1950’s and explore how the arrival of the Pakistani community has affected relationships with old and new residents.

Lanternhouse International – Leading Lights is a mixed media project including animation, film and a website, which will bring together 40 young people and 10 elderly people form Ulverston. The project aims to address the perceived divisions within the town and the mistrust between the young people and the elderly.

Motiroti – A-Maze is a youth led public art project based in Islington, which will involve 32 young people including Muslims, Asylum seekers, refugees and pupils from Islington’s Pupil referral unit. Together they will use images and video to find their way through different identities and experiences, culminating in the production of their own digital stories around their sense of identity.

Blueprint: Film Foundation – The Rural Wolds Documentary will be created by 18 disadvantaged young people from nine rural villages across North East Lincolnshire. Working together they will create a film addressing their feelings of isolation as well as the limited opportunities available to them and the need to unite local communities.

Bristol Community FM – Culture Mash will be a series of four radio documentaries produced and broadcast by young people from Asian and Somali backgrounds. The programmes will address issues such as poverty, bullying and racism and aim to identify, explore and breakdown the barriers to a cohesive community life together.

Bromley By Bow Centre – Dot to Dot (creatively connecting the community) will be a magazine aimed at making young people and adults stop and think about the negative perception of young people and demonstrate the good work that young people can do. 15 young people from a disadvantaged area of East London will create the magazine using photos, cartoons and drawings, learning practical skills such as management and magazine design and production.

North Tyneside Voluntary Organisations Development Agency – Lights Camera Community Action will involve 33 young participants with a range of disadvantages working together to create a series of animations about the values needed for a cohesive community.

Protégé DNA Ltd – The Wrong Trainers will be created by a group of young people aged 14-19, all of whom have been excluded from school. The group will produce an advertising campaign exploring their relationships with ‘people of authority’ such as police, mental health experts and social services.

The Media Bus CIC – My Story will be a short drama documentary with two difference perspectives, based on actual stories from disadvantaged young people from within and outside the youth justice system. The project will work across two contrasting geographical areas – Bournemouth and Leeds – and will culminate with the young people marketing and exhibiting the film and each receiving an arts award for their work.

Indymedia3 Productions – Poplar Academy will engage 30 black and Asian young people from Tower Hamlets in a youth led film and photography project. Three separate pieces of work will be produced including a film about Muslim youth extremism, a documentary depicting intergenerational relations and a photography exhibition entitled Black and White.

Ryburn Valley High School – Bridging the Gap is a multi-media project looking to bring together young people from a variety of backgrounds with older people, to address the negative perception of young people, based on the way that they dress. The project will include creative writing, photography, podcasts and blogs and the young people will also organise the structure, installation and launch of an exhibition of their work.

Birmingham YMCA – Y Young People Can! is a photography project involving young homeless people in Birmingham, providing them with skills and opportunities that they would not normally have. The young people will work with professional photographers to explore their personal journeys, both in and out of homelessness. The project will culminate in a large exhibition of work at Birmingham Central Library.
MAP (Multi Arts Programme) – Landmark will be a photography project based in Banbury, involving local young people and adults as well as young people from Poland who are new to the area. During the project the group will photograph a range of local locations that mean something to them. This could be somewhere meaningful, somewhere frightening or a place where something important happened. Participants will then work to show what is special about each place using digital photography skills, drawings and old pictures combined into large prints.

Basildon Positive Futures – Know your Neighbour is a radio and photography project involving 30 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The group will receive accredited training in radio production and photography before forming teams of digital explorers to go into the community and collect material from local people about their lives. The resulting work will then be exhibited online and at Towngate Theatre.

Hi8us Midlands LTD – Urban Legends will be undertaken by a group of 32 young people from Birmingham and Sandwell, who will create a multi-media digital scrapbook based on the theme of urban legends. The scrapbook will include videos, animations, digital stories, illustrations, comics, music and photography. The project will culminate in a local exhibition and be showcased at the International Hello Digital Festival in 2010.

Chill Enterprises Limited – Xpressive Documentary is an intergenerational project based in Leicester, which will involve both older and younger members of the community from a range of ethnic backgrounds. The film will discuss issues that are important to the young people, such as teenage pregnancy, crime and antisocial behaviour.

Nation of Aslam – Sound Like Graffiti will engage 35 Muslim and white young people aged 13-19 in a project to create short original radio plays, which can be listened to on a mobile phone. The plays will also be available online and be broadcast on national radio.

North Somerset Theatre Orchard Projects – Storyshed is a digital storytelling project exploring different perceptions of ‘place’. 24 young people affected with conditions such as autism and ADHD will work together with adults to create the digital stories as well as an installation to interactively showcase the stories.

S.P.I.D Theatre Company – The Effected will be a 60-minute fictional film about ‘The Effected’, zombies who have watched so many adverts that they can only think about themselves. It will be put together by 50 young people from a housing estate who will decide on locations, dialogue and script, as well as designing a marketing pack.

Create Studios – Face to Face will promote positive messages about sharing aspirations for the future, based on the diversity of the participants’ past experiences. Two films will be created along with a photography and poster campaign. The work created during the project will be exhibited at a range of screenings and exhibitions including BBC Big Screens and regional art centres, as well as online.

Interfaith Action – Faith & the Environment Community Exhibition will be a photojournalism project that will bring together 36 young people from many different backgrounds and faiths to raise awareness about climate change. The project will be exhibited in 10 places of worship, as well as in community centres.
Farsley Youth Development Project – Farsley Broadcasting Collective Radio is a project that will bring together a group of young people aged 14-19 from Leeds. The group will work together to develop a community radio station that will give local people the opportunity to discuss issues affecting the local area. The project will run for six months and produce four 45-minute programmes each week.

Leonard Cheshire Disability – Disability in the Community is a project that will bring together 30 young people with disabilities to make a provocative documentary entitled Clubbing It. The film will investigate the obstacles a person with disabilities may face on a night out and the prejudice that they may face.