The project will thus target two marginalized groups and engage adolescents without parental care in a 4 week radio production education course, during which they will learn how to use open digital platforms and technology to produce one radio feature and how to broadcast it online. Participants’ practical exercise will consist of conceptualizing and producing a radio feature on a social position of adolescents with seeing problems. Radio feature is final result, its creation is the education and its message is a perspective of the society and the world trough the eyes of blind girls and boys.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Sarajevo
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Lacking online representation of target groups is a generator for development of social prejudices and political discrimination of these groups. Subverting these social relationships by any use of open digital platforms is needed. Adolescents without parental care have a specific perspective on life. As children first what they learn is to relay on each other and to understand the spirit of collectivity. These children understand the social discrimination from inside and as such they can pool out from their peers with seeing problems the most honest opinions.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Sabina Sabic – Music room project – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-Room-Dom-Bjelave/232130513514744
Center for the Blind and visually impaired children and youth – http://www.czsd.edu.ba/ENG.html
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Radio feature that will be the final product of the training is an “insight” into the perception of the experience of everyday life, urban space and social relationships in the local community trough the mind of persons with seeing problems. How do they perceive the local community in which they are living? What are their orientation objects? How would they describe the world they are surrounded with? How they perceive space, architecture? What would they change, what would they need or benefit from? How do they perceive and experience their social position?
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
Project ”Music room” is a project of enthusiasts of Sarajevo organized in cooperation with the “Home for children without parental care – Bjelave, Sarajevo”. Around the “Music room” there is already formed group of adolescents who are interested in radio. That is how CRVENA is planing to find the best team for the mini radio crew. As for the second target groups there are already initial contacts with the Sarajevo based Center for the Blind and visually impaired children and youth. These connections will be further pursued in order to establish stronger relationship and cooperation and acquire necessary institutional support for this project.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
The project will train between 6 and 8 adolescents in the high school age range, from 14 to 18 years. With assistance of professional pedagogues working with adolescents in the “Home for children without parental care – Bjelave”, project coordinators will select the editorial crew based on the expressed interest and commitment. This crew will work as a radio production manufacture (editor, sound-(wo)men, director, sound designer, journalist, speaker). All ethical and decisions on aesthetic will be made jointly and responsibilities will be divided on spheres of affinity. On this way project is creating, not only the basis for this crew to continue working after the realization of the education but also for the transfer of knowledge and experience within their group.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Zoom A4 Sound recorder is a device that CRVENA already have. After the education is successfully finished, project foresees buying of a new Zoom A4 Sound recorder that will be given to the crew.
Audacity – Open source program for audio editing.
Mentoring and training will be provided by:
Haris Sahačić – BFA at the Chair for Experimental radio on Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, extensive radio and audio production experience.
Boriša Mraović – MA in political sciences University of Sarajevo and University of Bologna; MA in Psychology at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovin; Years of experience in social research radio and audio production.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Trainings, consulting and production process will be held both at “Music room” and in the premises of CRVENA. Premises of CRVENA are equipped with 4 computers on which Audacity is installed, meeting room with small audio monitors, projectors, ADSL and Wireless Internet. Zoom A4 Sound recorder (ZOOM H-4N – PORTABLE MP3/WAV RECORDER, UP TO 24-BIT/96KHZ, RECORD IN .WAV, MP3 AND BWF FORMAT, 2X XLR MIC INPUTS, INTEGRATED EFFECTS, GUITAR AMP SIMULATION, PHRASE TRAINER, TUNER, USB CONNECTION)
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
Association for culture and art CRVENA is working with different marginalized groups through the engagement of its members on extending values of peer-support, solidarity, collective action, informal and peer education etc. Building on the success of the “Music room” project we look at opening yet another dimension to participants and providing them with training that will further their skills. In order to recognize adolescents who show affinity or interest in radio format and audio production and to form a good and artistically compatible radio crew that can continue to work and independently present its views in public. Beside the academical background both of our colleagues Haris Sahačić and Boriša Mraović have years of radio experience.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
Unpredictable situations related to the discussions among the editorial team members can bring up many interesting information on how do this adolescents discuss in order to produce one radio feature. What are the important contents and why? Who's opinion will dominate and why? Will the redaction fall apart? All the redaction sessions will be recorded and at the end presented to the radio crew itself so they can discuss themselves and face these problems from an distanced perspective, we believe that this method can help them to establish the healthiest working environment for future.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Final product will be a 15-35 min radio feature. What is more important is the process through which participants will be equipped with skills but also enriched through a process of establishing connections with another group of a peculiar social status. “Success” will be evaluated by looking at A) assessments of the mentors who will record all the interventions. B) evaluation of the editorial/production team members who will produce the radio feature. C) Public that will comment on social networks where final product is going to be uploaded. Finally, since global digital community is communicating mostly in English, transcript of the feature will be available online.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
90 days (because of holidays or eventual unforeseen productions problems) May – July
1. Preparatory phase, establishing contacts and arrangements, recruitment and selection of participants; 20 days
2. Training in radio production, introduction of concepts, using of digital tools, 20 days
3. Practical exercise: scripting, planning, recording, interviewing, editing, individual and group mentoring, 30 days.
4. Final editing, mastering, publishing, transcription and translation, 20 days
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Following are the estimated costs for the realization of the project:
1. Coordinator fee 1000,00 $
2. English translation and adaptation fee 400,00 $
3. Recording device 335,69 $
4. Local travel, 150,00 $
5. Workshop costs (mentoring sessions) – internet, paper, batteries, telephone, refreshment and food, 500,00 $
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
As to the additional support, Rising Voices can support our organization in making alliances and partnerships which would increase the outreach of this initiative and the whole organization. Provided that the project is approved recommendations from Raising Voices could be a valuable support in pursuing similar micro-grant opportunities dealing with the possibilities of digital tools, communication platforms and networks.
Contact name
Haris Sahačić
Organization
Association for Culture and Art – CRVENA