Who is acting collectively? | How it works | Find out more
Through music and media, we are working to empower children and young people to produce media pieces with advocacy messages which will lead to an increased awareness of the need to protect children, and to improvements in the protective capacity and understanding of children, families, communities and official government departments responsible for child protection and wellbeing. The young people involved recognise themselves as citizens with rights and responsibilities, increase their life skills and their ability to protect themselves.
The media created is used to give a voice to children on the issues that are important to them, and ensure that this voice is heard both by those in the communities where these children live, but also on a higher level by duty-bearers.
Currently CRANE, our partner network in Uganda, has developed and run this programme. You can listen to some of the songs they have created on sound cloud or view videos on the CRANE YouTube page.
Network member organisations work together to identify children who will take part in the project, and to come up with the focus issues to raise awareness on.
A music and media coordinator is required to oversee and implement the project and they are assisted by a volunteer team of young people.
In Uganda, we work closely with Community Albums to develop the media and disseminate the productions.
This has been run predominately in Uganda where the network has developed Hope Studios to record media productions.
There are 3 key elements in the Programme:
1. Creating awareness through mass media
Mass media campaigns use television and radio adverts, radio dramas, short films or songs designed and created with children to improve awareness about keeping children safe.
Initially the network carries out research including focus groups of young people connected to network members, to assess the priorities of young people to decide on topics for the campaign.
A team of 13-18 year olds is selected to form the volunteer youth music and media team which is trained in media production and works with other children to research for, plan and produce the media campaign pieces to be uploaded to the network website.
2. Information, Communication and Education (IEC) films
A team of 10 young people (aged 13-18) who have been trained by the network create three short evidence-based IEC films that seek to educate adults on how to keep children safe and improve child wellbeing.
Planning for this includes identifying three topics on child protection and wellbeing based on research and work with children connected to member projects and planning the storyboards. They then produce the films and test them in youth and adult focus groups before uploading them onto the network website and sending copies of the films to network members and government officials.
3. Developing life skills and Collaborations using music and media
100 young people (8-18 years) are trained in workshops and then produce short film clips about their lives and issues that affect them. Collaborations take place on shared music and media pieces with schools in other countries.
We identify ten network member projects to participate in collaborations and carry out workshops at each location, where children identify issues facing them and how they want to express these concerns through short films and songs. Ten children in each location are trained in music and media technology and they involve others to create short films (1-2 minutes long) and record songs or poems about their lives, opinions and feelings, and their rights and responsibilities, which are uploaded to the network website.
We look for opportunities to share these media pieces as widely as possible and our partner in the programme, Community Albums enables schools in the network to connect with schools in the UK and share songs, photos and videos together.
If you would like to find out more about our media campaign work or to read we would love to hear from you. Please contact us on (+44) 1865 811 660 or info@viva.org
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