global partnerships | Global Junior Challenge

Global Youth Media uses digital media to engage young people in becoming positive agents for social change as well as active and productive members of their communities.

1. Project summary

Summary:

Global Youth Media uses digital media to engage young people in becoming positive agents for social change through the creation of socially conscious media. The program is open to all young, giving participants the opportunity to share information, exchange ideas and resources with their counterparts from diverse cultural, educational, social, religious and political backgrounds around the world.
Global Youth Media is centered around a high end, high quality interactive edutainment site website that will host an on-line radio station, videos, podcasts and articles on a wide range of issues including education, career, health, gender in development as well as feature interviews with community leaders and other members of the community. Participants will also be encouraged to independently record, edit and submit digital media to the site. Media has to have educational, social or cultural value to be considered and qualify for posting.
Global Youth Media will work with high school students providing them with opportunities to acquire skills through digital media training, cultural and educational exchange as well as interaction with industry professionals.

2. Country (City / Region)

State:

Zambia

City:

Mongu

3. Company/organization/institute presenting the project

Organization:

ProjectEDUCATE

4. Type of organization

Select type:

Other

Other:

Non-profit

5. Project coordinator

Name and Surname:

Mbao Ngula

E-Mail:

globalyouthmedia@project-educate.org

7. Please select the category in which you candidate your project

Youth Education Project. Select Project Users by age:

Up to 18 years

Helping youth step in the job market:

Helping youth step in the job market

Creativity and Social Innovation:

Creativity and Social Innovation

8. How long has your project been running?

From:

03/11/2008

9. Targets and Elements of Innovation

Please explain the targets and the background of your project:

The project beneficiaries are young people up to 18 years of age from poor disadvantaged and thus under served communities. However Global Youth Media was designed to not serve only one demographic or facilitate east to west connections but north south as well. Allowing students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds to connect, collaborate and effectuate change in their communities and around the world.

What does it try to achieve and how:

Global Youth Media tries to accomplish a number of things.
1. Improve digital media skills among participants.
2. Provide young people with the opportunity to effectuate positive social change.
3. Improve cultural understanding between young people from around the world
4. Provide mentoring support to young people
5. Foster a sense of duty and responsibility among young people.

We try to achieve this by providing young people with a platform through which they can connect and share ideas. During the course of the program, participants are encouraged to use the skills they acquire to raise awareness about a social justice issue allowing them to be actively involved in creating solutions to some of our most challenging issues. The program also provides mentoring support to young people by linking them to industry professionals.

Which opportunities/problems does it address to:

Among the problems the project addresses are the lack of an inclusive platform through which Zambia's young people can connect, interact and engage on social justice issues and thus providing them with an avenue though which they can contribute and make their voices heard.
Limited opportunities for skills training and interaction with industry professionals to help improve job skills and employability.
The lack of programming that facilitates mentoring of students

Please explain what is unique or special in your project:

Zambian youths now have a chance to connect and interact with their counterparts around the world improving knowledge and understanding among students from different educational and cultural backgrounds. Perhaps more significant is that students are able to identify developmental challenges in their communities and create relevant solutions. Already the project is fostering a sense of responsibility among students and we are excited about the long term prospects.

10. Results

Describe the results of your project as per today:

So far the project has partnered 9 schools from 3 continents. In the past year two of the schools have launched a highly effective Malaria campaign designed to raise awareness about Malaria with the emphasis being placed on prevention and cure. The campaign included a public service announcement which can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNoI-r4US7Y
They also redesigned the mosquito net to make it more user friendly for babies in hospitals. They named their new creation the spring or coil net as it is framed around a spring so that the net does not have to hang from an elevation to use it.
As a result we are seeing more students wanting to be involved with the project so they can be part of something new, different and relevant.
We are also seeing students having an improved sense of belonging in the community as well as exhibit a sense of understanding for people from other cultural backgrounds.

How does it fulfill the users’ needs:

The project directly gives participants an avenue through which to actively participate and creatively engage. This fosters a sense of belonging and self worth among young people. It gives them reason to believe their opinions and contributions matter.
What can be more important than making a child feel counted?

How many users interact with your project per month and what are the preferred forms of interaction:

We currently have an estimated 3500 students interacting through an exclusive social networking site hosted by Ning. With funding we hope to build to build a platform from the ground up. This would be a highly interactive platform with much of the functionality that is lacking on the current one to give users a more fulfilling experience. In addition to email, they also use blogs, chat and skype to communicate among individual students and schools.

How has it improved the quality of educational and/or training services:

In Zambia among participating schools, the project has broadened the scope of educational programming. Providing both teachers and students with a unique opportunity to contribute not just to education but development as well. By linking social justice and community service the project has created a new avenue for participation that has direct consequences on local development. It also links education to development in a way that it has not been done befre especially by young people.

How has it improved the participation of professionals, children, youth and other stakeholders:

The project is based around mentoring and networking and collaboration. Through the mentoring aspect of the project professionals in the community are able to positively influence participants by providing motivation, encouragement and support to young people and thus share and impart their skills to the next generation. Helping to raise confident stewards.
Children and youth have the chance to connect with each other and other young people from around the world improving their knowledge and understanding of the world they live in. They are also able to acquire new skills through training and interaction with professionals improving their chances for employment.
Through the project, young people get to contribute to community development by being involved in community projects that include but are not limited to improving access to clean drinking water, the environment, infectious disease, literacy and the digital divide by creating projects that address these issues.

How does it promote the use of ICT for the educational and cultural development by professionals, children and youth:

By its very nature this is an ICT based project. Communication among participants is entirely though the internet using email and even skype. Additionally, students work digital media through out the entire course of the project. Engaging professionals in the mentoring of participants thereby giving students the unique opportunity to interact and learn from industry professionals. Young people get to make positive contributions to their communities and communities around the world. By interacting with other young people from around the world, students gain valuable insights into life in other cultures fostering a sense of understanding and respect among young people from different cultures.

Describe how you measure (parameters) these results:

The program's results must be demonstrated, documented, and shared. Therefore management will make deliberate efforts in linking programs to local, community concerns and assess, communicate, and promote the approaches and techniques to be learned and implemented. As a first step to assessing programs, a unified monitoring and evaluation system will be developed – allowing management to chart and report progress and, just as important, serve as a management tool.

Metrics will be used to assess relevance, effectiveness, scalability, and financial
and sustainability. The metrics will be based on the needs of each participating school.

Overall program success will be measured by:

• Number of young people involved in the project annually
• Number of schools participating in the program per year
• Number of financial and media organizations as well as institutions of higher learning participating in the mentoring program
• Number of quality social campaigns created yearly (Set target of 2)
• Increase in the number of community members serving as volunteer trainers each year.

Success in terms of individual site users will be measured by;
• Number of visitors to site monthly and annually,
• Number of active members by thematic categories,
• Number of active members by school

Success in terms of member activity will be measured by
• Most accessed features
• Most viewed videos
• Most requested topics
• Top five features based on time spent on activity, and frequency of use.
• Top five pod casts
• Top five articles
• Top five outside accessed resources

System activity metrics will be measured by:
• Number of documents stored and added,
• Number of web links stored and added
• Number of collaboration connections
• Number of community posts

User satisfaction/needs will also be measured by asking users to provide feedback through integrated site features. Which will be used for program design, implementation and evaluation.

An evaluation will be conducted to help ensure quality as well as make sure implementation is proceeding accordingly. At the end of the year, a goal evaluation will be undertaken to determine whether the goals the program had set out to achieve have been achieved or not, as well as provide indicators on what adjustments if any need to be made to the program design and implementation to help meet goals and benchmarks.

11. Sustainability

What is the full duration of your project:

More than 6 years

What is the approximate total budget for your project (in USD):

From 10.001 to 30.000

What is the source of funding for your project:

Other

Other:

Fundraising

Is your project economically self sufficient now:

12. Transferability

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere:

What lessons can others learn from your project:

We have learned we live in an increasingly global community and thus our borders are no longer solely defined by city, state or national boundaries. Instead they reach far beyond and connect people from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. As the global community expands, we can longer rely on traditional means to communicate and connect but instead must capitalize on the unprecedented growth of Information Communication Technologies to address the challenging issues of our time.
Among other things, we have learned and continue to learn that children have a lot to day about the local and global challenges we all face. And that when given the opportunity, the tools and resources, they have the ability to create long lasting solutions to developmental challenges. We have learned young people have a lot to contribute and that we have a duty and responsibility to ensure we provide them with all the support they need in order for them to be active and productive members of society. It is our only hope for a descent future.

We are available to help others starting or working on similar projects:

We are available to help others starting or working on similar projects.

13. Background information

Background:

Global Youth Media was conceived out of ProjectEDUCATE's Circle of Friends. A program that was designed to connect Zambian schools with their counterparts around the world. With the donation of computer equipment to some of our partner schools, it was clear we needed to create practical uses for the equipment in order for them to be an effective educational and developmental resource. Understanding the absolute need for networking and collaboration, we created linkages between Zambian schools and their counterparts. The initial idea was simply to connect schools but as they linkages developed, it became apparent we had a unique opportunity to effectuate change in a way it had not been before in these communities. We started asking what if these students could not only communicate but work together over distances? What experiences would they bring to an issue? Any issue. But we did not want it to be just any issue. We wanted it to be something that the students could from different background could be excited about and collectively and collaboratively work to address? And so they were asked to choose a socioeconomic issue to address and the result was the Malaria campaign cited elsewhere in this proposal. We knew we had come up with something unique and so we designed an entire program around the school partnerships and called it Global Youth Media.

Barriers:

The lack of funding has been the main barrier to implementation. We have so far created the necessary partnerships with schools and media organizations to support implementation. Without the necessary funding, it will be impossible to effectively design and successfully implement the project.

Solutions:

We launched a proactive fundraising campaign that centered around partner schools to raise the funds needed for implementation. We also asked businesses to support the project by donating digital equipment for the project.

Future plans and wish list:

As we look to the future, we hope to accomplish a number of things including hiring a program coordinator to specifically focus on the program design and implementation. This will focus time and resources on Global Youth Media as opposed to splitting it between three other initiatives.
We will then move to secure funding for the proposed Global Youth Media portal.
We would also like to see more schools from around the world participate.
Our wish list list includes digital media equipment being computers and cameras.

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