yMedia challenge conquered: what next?

Last year, I had the privilege to work with the YouthLaw whanau to come up with a digital media project that helped empower children and young people with legal information. My best friend, Red, and I worked with YouthLaw whanau members, Jeanie and Nick, to create Facebook and Bebo pages that helped to achieve this purpose. For example, on the Bebo page there are quizzes that help children and young people better understand the law.

The whole thing was part of the yMedia challenge, a challenge that gets students together with Non Profit Organisations (NPOs) so that students can put their skills to use in the real world, and the NPOs benefit from the project outcome as well. Check www.ymediagroup.org for more information.

Well, we won it, and that has spun off a whole swagload of cool opportunties for Red and I. Money for starters, like $1,000 for winning the competition. And an internship for us both at Saatchi and Saatchi. And an invitation to last year's Digital Future Summit, check http://www.digitalsummit.org.nz/.

For me, one of the best outcomes of the challenge was the opportunity to continue working with YouthLaw on a new project, a national youth advocacy programme delivered over a digital medium.

Last year, YouthLaw applied for funding to develop a digital media programme that helps youth workers, like counsellors, advocate for youth in their day to day jobs. With the funding almost through, YouthLaw is looking to start working on the project, developing a framework, a network of youth workers and digital resources to make it all happen.

While I'm not sure exactly what my role will be in the project, I hope to do some research work (e.g. find the best software to do the job), documentation work, project management work, and maybe even work on some video resources for the project.

I've selected the project as my Unitec internship, part of my Bachelor of International Communication. That requires 120 hours of completed work for YouthLaw, but I think I will probably go over this amount. Who knows?

I'm really looking forward to it, and of course I'll keep you posted on how things go in this blog. Hear more from me soon!