Learning and Development News

Communication skills get anti-crime message on the air

By Elizabeth Eyre (11-07-2008)
0 Comments Comments
Article Rating:

Poor Best

Email to a friend | Print Version

Learning and Development News - Communication skills get anti-crime message on the air

Young people in south London are putting their communication skills to the test on a new radio station being launched as part of an anti-weapons campaign.

Nearly 90 teenagers have been taught journalism, presenting and producing skills so they can run Reprezent 87.7FM and get their message of peace on the streets on the air.

Reprezent 87.7FM is due to be launched on 5th August and will be broadcast live for a month by community radio station South City Radio, formerly Radio Peckham. It will be presented and produced entirely by young people aged between 14 and 19, who have been given the necessary skills by Eclectic Productions, a not-for-profit organisation specialising in community radio projects.

The teenagers will be working in partnership with the Metropolitan Police and London radio station Choice FM to deliver their “Peace on the Streets” message to other young listeners. Young people will be able to listen to each other and offer advice, campaigning to reduce knife and gun crime in the London borough of Southwark and relieve the tensions between gangs living around the capital.

Twenty teenagers have died violently in London so far this year and, while police deny there is an “epidemic”, they do admit that there is a problem with knife crime in the city and have launched Operation Blunt 2 in response.

Reprezent 87.7FM is supported by a host of DJs, musicians and singers including Richard Blackwood, Booty Luv, nDubz and rapper Bashy, who said: “Reprezent is an exciting project and opportunity. It’s great to be part of it, see it happening and make a difference, working to keep people on the straight and narrow.”

The celebrities will be interviewed live on air by the youngsters on topical issues.

Reprezent will also broadcast live from the Mix Festival, being held in south London on 17th August. The event, which looks set to be one of the biggest public displays against gun and knife crime in the UK, is to host 20,000 young people celebrating “Peace on the Streets” and signing up to the anti-weapons pledge.

Although Reprezent is mainly aimed at young people in London, and particularly Southwark, Eclectic Productions has run similar projects in other UK cities such as Manchester.

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears chose Eclectic Productions as the venue for the launch of a new White Paper - Communities in control: real people, real power – and said: "South City Radio is exactly the sort of project I believe can make a real difference to a local area. It is a focal point for community concerns, providing opportunities to develop skills through volunteering and training.

“Schemes like this provide local authorities with real opportunity too – to reach out to the community and think more creatively about how best to deliver on local priorities like anti-social behaviour and crime."

 

 

 

 

Back to top | Latest news

 

Readers Comment

Comment on this story here >

Be the first to comment on this news story