More about EMN
EMN was founded at the 1st YEPP-Community Conference and Youth Meeting in Berlin in January 2005. The decision to focus on community media was inspired by the interest expressed by several programme sites from as early as in 2003. As a matter of fact, it was clear from the very beginning of YEPP in 2001 that cultural and artistic projects can have a powerful role within a holistic strategy of youth and community empowerment.
A core element of this approach is stimulating young people so that they become capable of shaping their lives and their environment. Cultural activities can support this process; for instance, these projects can help to increase active participation and visibility of young people, to strengthen their self-esteem, to improve their communicative skills, and to enhance communication between various cultural or ethnic groups. Active community media work, in particular, has been seen as a powerful tool for citizens - among them young people - to gaining a public voice.
The driving force of EMN lies in the recognition of the creative, social and cultural potential of young people. We help them develop and express such potential by means of a unique program of practical work on digital media inspired and underlined by issues such as media ethics, identity and citizenship, democracy.
These media are developed and shared in innovative ways -- through workshops, competitions and transnational and bilateral exchanges where large or small groups of young people from different countries get together to work, have fun, make friends and learn to respect each other and their cultural differences, thus creating an environment which favours integration and mutual understanding. In addition, EMN works in collaboration with formal learning institutions and international organizations to craft projects on digital media, to help devise teachers' training programmes in this field and to influence educational policies.
EMN’s goals are:
- To provide an environment where young people are enabled to explore and develop their competences (social attitudes and skills) and self esteem
- To enable young people to create and project their own image as active members of society
- To encourage young people to use digital media to create and share content and artefacts
- To involve young people in a developmental process, which has specific goals and tangible outcomes
- To provide an environment where young people are recognised as competent and knowledgeable individuals
- To develop and promote good practices in the field of non formal learning and enhance informal learning opportunities
- To impact on educational policies
- To create opportunities to raise the awareness of cultural differences and promote mutual understanding.
The story so far..
Locally:
In some YEPP Local Programme Sites, entire youth channels and local community TV networks have been established and in others, collaborations with organizations who have expertise working in media have been solidly established.
Striking examples include the contacts of YEPP Antwerp with Piazza dell'Arte the Public Youth Service of Antwerp and Youth Meeting Center Kavka, of YEPP in Tuzla with the Peaceflame House which contributes both technical experience and equipment, the contacts of YEPP in Dublin with the Community Media Network and the Bradog Youth Centre who are active in the field of filmmaking with disadvantaged young people and the partnership between the YEPP Mirafuori TV group in Turin with the association Videocommunity that promotes community television in the Piemonte area.
At the transnational level:
EMN organizes international workshops and competitions for its members; past themes have included: media awareness, documentary making, new media technologies and the web. Members also collaborate on joint projects which have included a series of documentary portraits, talk-shows, local area newsreels, film competitions and short fiction movies. Through a project called Videomaking across Europe EMN members also have the opportunity to travel to other YEPP Programme Sites to work on specific projects with local young people -creating a unique bond between young people of different countries and cultures through artistic collaboration.
What we are working on:
The new challenge is the Web 2.0 and the way in which it has changed the approach to media production and distribution, enabling anyone who has access to a fast internet connection to generate and share content. This is a great opportunity but it also carries some potential threats, in the sense that it can easily be abused or misused. EMN has started a pilot project called Ethicommunity, in collaboration with three upper secondary schools in Turin, Italy. Its aim is both to help the students develop a critical and discerning approach to the new media, and to guide them through a hands-on experience where they will produce media and upload the results onto the web.
The participants will explore and use Web 2.0 and YouTube, film language, video cameras and last generation mobile video-phones to develop a discerning approach to the new media and understand the explicit and implicit messages these media can convey.
