Unmet Needs Fund - End of Project Report

FP Radio Project delivered by Future Prospects

Introduction
The ICT Hub is committed to meeting the needs of groups from a wide range of backgrounds
and to reaching groups in the voluntary and community sector who have innovative ideas for
the use of technology.

The ICT Hub had a fund to meet innovative ICT ideas that are not covered by any of our core
funded projects or commissions. It wasn’t designed to provide support to keep existing
projects running, but there for new projects that will leave a lasting impact, inform funders of
potential areas for further funding or to encourage others in taking further and sustaining.

Future Prospects was one of five projects awarded this commissioned work in October 2007
to be delivered by March 2008.

Background

This phase of the Unmet Needs fund builds on from Phase 1 of the ICT Hub’s programme of
work to March 2007 where the ICT Hub funded a number of other projects through this type of
award.

Aim of the commission

To engage and train speakers of other languages in the York area to develop ‘truly accessible’
community virtual internet radio programmes and podcasts where people can share news and
information in their first language (Urdu, Polish and Chinese).

To empower silent communities in the city, strengthening networks and allow individual to
discover the role ICT has to play as a pivot to learning, work and social communication.

Background on lead organisation

Future Prospects (FP) is an advice and skills development service to support people to
access learning and work.

Within the service we deliver specialist projects to support groups who face specific barriers
to learning and work. An expanding project in the past 5 years has been the work supporting
people from minority ethnic groups and EU accession countries (now employing 1.5 FTE staff
members), facilitating the progression to learning or work and creating opportunities for both
social inclusion and maintaining cultural identity.

York has a significant though small (3.7%) ethnic minority population and social isolation is a
reoccurring theme for people who are coming through the service. Also within the FP service
we have an IT in the Community project which delivers a range of short IT based courses to
engage people in learning and to develop core skills for learning and employment. These

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courses are delivered at our city centre premises or at venues across the city, including
schools, libraries and community centres.

Project summary

The Community Internet Radio project gave minority ethnic groups within the city the
opportunity to learn multimedia technologies and to share news and information within their
own communities in their first language.

The project succeeded in engaging and training speakers of other languages in the York area
and developing ‘truly accessible’ internet radio programmes and podcasts. The project gave a
voice to some of the silent communities in the city, strengthened networks and allowed
individuals to discover the role IT has to play as a pivot to learning, work and social
communication.

The project initially engaged in a programme of outreach, utilising community networks and
establishing new contacts. Once engaged, people progressed onto a learning programme to
develop the IT and presentation skills to produce radio programmes to be uploaded as
podcasts. User groups were then established through learning and community networks,
holding demonstrations and seminars to promote the community radio scheme and the
number of users.

Project aims and achievement of objectives

A group of 8 learning champions will experience a 10 hour training course to record, edit and
upload ‘high quality’ audio materials reflecting the interests of the community. As these are
published on the internet they will be available from home at work or community venues and
libraries.

The learning gathered from this project could be a model to be used elsewhere as the wider
impact has the potential to benefit the whole city and beyond. York has some challenges to
face around improving engagement with minority ethnic groups and this pilot can lay the
foundation for advancements in cross city ‘first language’ communication and can impact key
agendas on e-governance and social inclusion.

Monitoring and effectiveness will be through the York Racial Equality Network, the local CVS
for voluntary groups and more informal networks such as the Polish Catholic group. An
assessment of impact can be through monitoring the broadcast rate and listenership and
through informal questioning.

The delivery method of the project has worked well. A combination of taught sessions at
different times followed by one-to-one tutoring has enabled the project to respond to the
needs of individual participants' support needs. We have been able to meet the minimum
target of eight learners complete 10 hours of learning and thus far, we facilitated 38
individuals who have English as a second language to access the pod casts and sign up for
updates.

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Participants have recorded some good pieces of local information in their first language

Lessons learned

Staff have developed technical skills that are needed to deliver such a project and more
specifically how to make it successful Have up-skilled the staff in delivery to people who have
English as a second language.

Working with BME participants has enabled us as an organisation to develop more links with
members of the BME community within a learning environment this has deepened our
expertise in delivering more complex and creative projects with this group.

Having learnt a range of IT skills, learners are able to make their own recordings with
minimum support. This will allow them to share information in their first language with their
communities. This could be an invaluable resource for people who have English as a Second
Language.

Those who have accessed the podcasts have also learnt the skills that they would need in
order to get local information in their first language. Many of these learners have very limited
English language skills and would otherwise therefore not have access to this information.

People have become more confident and competent IT users which will prepare them for a
changing and evolving society and labour market.

The future of the project

The project has shown that podcasting has potential to support groups who are either isolated
or have limited language skills.

We would recommend organisations working with other marginalised groups (especially BME
groups, disabled people and people with learning difficulties) to explore this option as a way
to improve communication and information sharing.

Other organisations can benefit from adopting a similar approach, as long as the learners
participating will benefit from the learning journey, as people finding the end product
‘worthwhile’ will be something of an unknown (and if using the final product is important, then
having some ownership over its creation is likely to be beneficial.)

Key partners

Andy Bucklee was project lead for Future Prospects.

Paul Webster, Regional ICT Infrastructure Support at NAVCA was project lead and
commissioning agent for NAVCA.

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The following were involved in development, and delivering the project and training:
Kuldip Kaur – Future Prospects

Podcast

Podcasts from this work is available on the Future Prospects website -

www.futureprospects.org.uk

Report compiled by:

Paul Webster
Regional ICT Infrastructure Support
ICT Hub - NAVCA

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