EVERY young person has got a story to tell – and this National Youth Week (NYW), April 4-13 – some of the most disadvantaged youth in Victoria will get a chance to tell their story as the Berry Street School teams-up with youth-run SYN Media’s radio station.
While young people, aged 12-25, make up only 18 per cent of Victoria’s population, NYW aims to give this sizeable minority a platform to have their voices heard and ideas considered, with this year’s theme being ‘Our Voice. Our Impact.’
Students from the school run by Victoria’s largest child and family services organisation, Berry Street, have teamed with the young people at SYN Radio for their radio training course, Schools on Air. They recently completed the program and in celebration their final show will be broadcast on SYN 90.7FM to kick off NYW this Friday, April 4.
The radio show will be aired on the largest youth run, youth aimed radio channel, empowering young Victorians during the nation’s biggest and most colourful youth event of the year.
The students from the school’s Noble Park campus will be sharing on air what it means to be a young person today- talking about what they like to do in their spare time, their interests, their relationship with social media and how it affects their lives- basically what it means to be a teenager today! It will be interspersed with comedic humour and anecdotes from their time at the Berry Street School.
Students had the opportunity to research, write scripts, and choose music for the program and present content on-air. One student, Max*, 14, wanted to learn how to mix the recording desk. He controlled the microphone levels, music, promos and timed the whole program.
“It was really hard but a lot of fun. I’ve never done anything like this before and it got me thinking differently,” he said.
The Curriculum Coordinator of the Berry Street School, Skye Staude, has been leading student involvement with SYN Media as part of the school’s Drama program. She is very supportive of the project, as it promotes community engagement for the students and provides them with experiences outside of their comfort zone.
Skye encourages the students to actively participate in their communities and the SYN project provided the perfect opportunity.
“Most of the students initially found the experience quite daunting as it was a very different world to what they are used to, however as the session progressed, every student walked out of the studio beaming and so proud of what they had achieved.”
The live radio show is helping to shape our generation’s future impact, through community initiatives like NYW by communicating with the network’s 80,000 loyal listeners around Victoria that tune in every week, where young people make up 54% of the radio network’s audience.
NYW is a chance for young people to get together with friends and engage with the larger community, sharing insights into their opinions and experiences in their local communities.
The Schools on Air project gives these young people a chance to engage with the community in this year’s theme ‘our voice, our impact’. The government funded event runs from April 4-13.
*name has been changed to protect the identity of the person
Source: Berry Street
Ryan Fritz
Ryan Fritz started The Advocate in 2014 to provide not-for-profits and charities another media platform to tell their worthwhile hard news stories and opinion pieces effortlessly. In 2020, Ryan formed a team of volunteer journalists to help spread even more high-quality stories from the third sector. He also has over 10 years experience as a media and communications professional for not-for-profits and charities and currently works at Redkite, a childhood cancer charity.
