School Radio Space is an educational project for students of school in province Ukrainian city Kremenchuk. Main aims of project are activation of local school youth communities, teaching youth of basic principles of citizen journalism, developing local Internet-radio Space. Objects of our project are: 1) to organize 13 training sessions for 120 activists among Kremenchuk school youth; 2) encourage youth to make topical audio-news about their school, local community, and city; 3) to publish and promote their podcasts on Internet radio platform Space – http://www.prostir.org.ua/
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Kremenchuk
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Our target group (TG) is school youth (14-18 y.o). Some representatives of TG already participate in developing radio Space. During one of trainings they ask: Why don’t involve more school youth? This inspires us on writing this proposal and teenagers participate in developing the concept of the project. Kremenchuk school youth represented online mostly in social networks, but they are uninformed about new age possibilities in Internet (like SoundCloud, CPod, Prezi or SlideShare). School news till now they made on big papers. During revolution teenagers often come to us and ask: What we can to do in our school? 75 % of school students have access to computer and Internet. They have technical possibility, but don’t know how to use in the way of developing themselves and local communities.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Coordinator of project Olena Glazkova – https://www.facebook.com/alona.glazkova
An expert in technical questions (how to use equipment, how to edit podcasts and download them on CPod and then on the radio Space platform) Anton Chupin – https://www.facebook.com/curedia?fref=ts
Trainers Oleg Ovcharenko – https://www.facebook.com/oleh.ovcharenko?fref=ts
And Svitlana Ovcharenko – https://www.facebook.com/svitlov?fref=ts
An expert in radio journalism Lilia Samoilenko – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002418511038&fref=ts
An expert in producing school’s media Mykola Shpakovsky, ex-coordinator of project MAMmedia:Freedom (project about creation school’s news on the platform MAMmedia – http://mammedia.com.ua ) – https://www.facebook.com/Bareth?ref=ts&fref=ts
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Concept of our radio platform it’s promote local (culture, music, history, people) and do it together. So we are expecting that content of news produced by school students will be about their schools, their life, events in the city or in local small communities where they are live, actual topics for them. Ukrainian revolution is stand up all categories of population, including school youth. Now is very topical themes of corruption and human rights in schools and we are hope that these themes will be elucidate in podcasts of our participants. But first of all they will make accents on that what concerned them directly.
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.
We create Internet radio-platform Space in frame of project Internet-radio and podcasting for libraries with financial support of Bibliomist foundation. We’ll use platform for publishing podcasts and audioblogs. Our organization experienced in implementation projects about activation of local communities. Last year in frame of Travelling festival of documentary films about human rights we work with schools and school leaders. They fully organize film screenings in own schools, prepare and lead discussions after screenings. In frame of project MAMmedia:Freedom we are organize 6 trainings for school youth and teach them how to make newspapers on interactive platform http://mammedia.com.ua. We have stable partnership with few schools and we plan involve them for implementing this proposal.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
We plan to choose 5 schools with less opportunities (not so good computer classes, not so much involve in different civic movements, school exchanges etc.), organize pilot training sessions on their base during the school summer camps(for 20 students from every school, i.e. 100 students will be trained). In autumn we’ll choose 20 activists (14-18 y.o.) from previous participants and new ones. Selection of participants will be on open-call base via motivation letter and including regional location and gender equality. Also we are plan to teach one teacher from every school. We hope that in future these schools become a base for stable partnership in development citizen radio in Kremenchuk. Our personal will couch participants during their first steps in citizen journalism.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
We’ll teach participants leadership and communication skills, basic journalism (with accent on radio-journalism), creating of podcasts, technical skills in work with audio (editing), how to work with microphone and digital voice recorder, technology of work with our radio-platform Space and Internet-platforms Cpod http://cpod.co, SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com, interactive platform MAMmedia http://mammedia.com.ua and technology of creation school news with help of this tool. We think that developing of audio journalism is appropriate now because people become lazy to read. And a lot of people prefer to listen something during their monotonous work. For participants audio-journalism it’s a tool additionally to improve speaking skills.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
We are plan to organize trainings in our office which is situated in a city centre. It is safe place. Total space is 65 m2. It is divided in 2 zones: place for work and place for meetings which is adopted for trainings, seminars and other educational events (include furniture: chairs, tables, bookcases). Equipment in the office: laptops ASUS K53SK and Lenovo B570, streaming media server based on debian + icecast2, digital voice recorder Olympus VN-713PC, microphone TAKSTAR SGC 568, multifunctional printer Canon i-SENSYS MF4410, screen Redleaf Popular 180×180 (SRM-1102), multimedia projectors NEC NP 210 and Epson EB-X9, DVD Philips DVP 3252, termopot CAMERON CTR-4060, high speed internet connection 100 Mbit/sec, Wi-Fi router.
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?
Already 5 years we work with local community. We have partnerships with universities, vocational schools, city departments of education, culture and youth. We are in touch with network of school European clubs. There will work 3 our EVS-volunteers from September. Our office act as the center of youth activation called Space of ideas. Now center stand as communicational platform for different cultures and people, including marginalized. Our organization works in the way of promotion active citizenship and improvement of the knowledge of young people in the field of human rights through education of youth, researches of life stories, analysis of school textbooks, and inclusion of people with fewer chances in society.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
First challenge that we can met is connected with participants and schools administrations which are not enough motivated for stable partnership. Classes in school and participation in other projects and initiatives also can be big challenge. Another kind of challenges is connected with software which will be use during implementation of the project (paid programs or pirated copies). One of the challenges what we can met is low quality reportages produced by our participants. Unhealthy competition between schools and teams can become challenge for us.
To overcome these obstacles we’ll choose participants very carefully, try to speak more about motivation, organize quality personal support (to involve like mentors youth who now work on developing radio Space like a citizen journalists).
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
100 people will gain basic knowledge about journalism, organizing discussions, press conference, make reportage and produce at least 20 podcasts on actual themes, learn how to use tools of citizen journalism in promotion civic problems and finding solutions for them. They’ll improve own knowledge and understanding of democratic values, become more tolerant, improve skills of critical thinking and share these with classmates, friends, teachers and parents (approx. 800 people). In 5 schools will be organized correspondent radio points (in every school approx. 700 students and 40 teachers, i.e. 3700 people will have direct access for tools of citizen journalism). We’ll count project successful if after project till June, 2015 participants make 7-10 additional podcasts, involve 5 new people.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
End of May, 14. Start. During city celebration of Europe Day sharing information among schools about project. Preparing and sharing announcements about start of project in media (including new media, social networks, and personal contacts). Selection of schools via their interest.
Jun –July, 14. Planning of training sessions. Organizing 5 full-day training sessions and 5 consultations. Analysis results of trainings. Start of upgrading radio-platform Space.
July–Aug, 14. Preparing, editing and publishing first podcasts with mentoring from exist youth citizen journalists.
Sept, 2014. Preparing and sharing announcement about the selection of 20 activists from 5 schools. Planning of training sessions. Selection of participants.
Oct, 14. Organizing 8 half-day training sessions & 4 consultations. Start of work on podcasts.
Nov, 14. Recording, editing, publishing podcasts
Dec, 14. Evaluation meeting
Jan-May, 15. Organizing moved radio points in schools, couching of participants
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Portable 3-G Wi-Fi router 1 X 100 USD = 100 USD
Stationary, coffee breaks 14 events X 20people X 4 USD = 1120 USD
Trainers 2pers X 13 sessions X 8 USD = 208 USD
Rent of office room, utilities 6 months X 80 USD = 480 USD
Coordinator 6 months X 40 USD = 240 USD
Technical support and administration radio-platform Space 6 months X 50 USD = 300 USD
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
It will be nice if Rising Voices can provide us some literature about citizen journalism, or experts in this theme, share our podcasts on platform of Global voices and inform about new opportunities which we can join.
Contact name
Olena Glazkova
Organization
Kremenchuk informative-elucidative centre European Club
