11/04/11

April 7 was special for two reasons: The first is that it was World Health Day - an occasion that marks the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organisation and seeks to promote awareness and encourage action on a varying range of health related issues.

The second reason is that it was Mulberry School for Girls 10th Annual Mulberry Youth Conference. Since 2001 the girls' school in Tower Hamlets, London has been holding a youth led forum for discussion and debate, and has garnered significant support and endorsement from public figures such as head of Liberty Shami Chakrabati and former MP Tony Benn in the process. The theme for this year's conference was Youth Media & Social Change.

Given that the conference was led by, and largely attended by college and sixth form students, it was no surprise that the topic of the conference generated a healthy amount of debate and differing opinions. To start proceedings, a number of guest speakers from the media such as Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and documentary filmmaker Fiona Lloyd-Davies took to the podium to give an insight into their field of work. Once the guest speakers had finished, the workshops began.

A number of charities including Childreach International, Amnesty International and Dance 4 Life held workshops with groups of students from various schools in attendance in order to get them thinking and discussing some of the issues and topics of the day. Childreach International's Global Schools Initiative Manager Anouk Galle led a workshop on the importance of hand hygiene, and how various types of media can be used to effectively promote the issue. With the conference falling on World Health Day, it seemed natural to combine the issues of hand hygiene and youth media together.

Over two million people succumb to water related illnesses each year from either washing in, or drinking dirty water, or just failing to clean their hands properly. The simple act of washing your hands with soap can dramatically cut this number and save countless lives, and so our workshop centred around the title of 'Water & Soap: Join the Campaign for Health.'

The students were each divided into three groups and tasked promoting the issue through a microsite, a radio press release and a video.

Each group had 35 minutes to draw up and plan out the task in their assigned medium. This was all new territory for the participants as although they used the internet or watched videos on a day-to-day basis, none of them had any experience in the process behind designing websites or story boarding videos.

The groups were given information packs on their respective project countries as well as various images to use. Working strictly to Childreach International's brand guidelines, the students had to take into account the types of imagery and wording they intended to use in their presentations. Although sometimes finding it a challenge to settle on one particular aspect of designing or wording, the pupils generally worked well together and completed the task on time, presenting well thought out and planned storyboards for the video and a four page microsite. The group tasked with drafting a press release for the radio were challenged with getting their message across without the use of visual materials such as photo or video. Nevertheless, the end product was a press release filled with evocative, yet positive language.

The accomplished way in which the pupils approached and carried out their assignment was testament to the success and ethos of the Mulberry Youth Conference, which was rounded off by some truly inspiring speeches by two Mulberry School students.