"VOICE IT EUROPE"

Contact: Damian PAYTON
DigitalME
Radiowaves
30-34 Aire street LS14HT
Leeds - The UK

Duration of the project: From September 2007 to March 2008
Partnership:

Partnership: Sixteen young people aged between 13 and 19 - half from the UK, half from Latvia are collaborating in this project.
Partner n°1 (BENEFICIARY): DigitalME - private compagny (the UK) - Partner n°2: iEARN UK - association (the UK)
Partner n°3: Youth club "Lingua" - public local authority (Latvia)

How did you come up with the idea?

"The first group is from the UK and already involved in Voice It - a project supported by the Ministry of Justice to increase democratic engagement in the UK. Their partner group is English Club at higschool in Latvia.
The UK group will bring its experience of Voice it in the Uk, which has already completed a successful pilot phase. The second group will bring its own outlook as a recent EU entrant. They will exchange and share ideas about European democratic structures."

Brief description and aim of the project:

"Voice It Europe is about young people using the power of podcasts to report on issues that matter to them. They use their own web space to investigate and campaign on local, national and European topics.
Participants are working together using "Web 2.0" technology: self-publishing, voting in polls, sharing content.
Thanks to this project participants can be train in journalistic skills and give the confidence to arrange and conduct interviews with influential people who might normally appear "out of reach". "

Objectives:

- Get to meet and interview their elected representatives at each of these levels;
- Explore how media tools can be used to make them active citizens;
- Find a way to access politicians whose decisions affect their lives;
- Plan, produce and publish programmes based on interviews with their peers and elected representatives;
- Upload the edited pieces to their own space on the global Radiowaves website;
- Make them available as podcasts to a worldwide audience of people who need and want to know how young people think.

Strong points of the project:

The most outstanding characteristic is the use of the very latest self-publishing technology to discuss serious issues. Podcasts, blogs and social networking are enormously influential new movement, especially for young people.

Finance:

Total amount : 36 053€
60% Youth in Action programme
40% digitalME and IEARN (in-kind contribution)