By Savannah Jenkins
I first heard of Podium.me in January of 2018 after an advisee of the not-for-profit I had recently joined shared the profile of a U.K. charity working with young people to broadcast youth voices. I had just been hired by News Decoder, an organization dedicated to helping young people understand the world through media production and news analysis, and we were brainstorming new ways to decode the news on our public news site.
With the surge in popularity in podcasting, audio seemed a great medium for youth to explore some of the big, global issues in News Decoder’s program with academic institutions, such as Climate Change or Human Rights. So we set up a call to learn more about how we might leverage Podium.me’s expertise in youth audio production.
Camilla’s enthusiasm for youth media aligned with News Decoder’s desire to help young people be better informed about the world and Podium’s youth-led approach meshed nicely with News Decoder’s bottom-up pedagogy. Like News Decoder, Podium wanted to highlight young voices in areas dominated by experts in order to spark new ways of thinking about old issues.
Since then, Podium.me and News Decoder have produced three seasons of The Kids Are Alright, a podcast series dedicated to doing just that.
The Kids Are Alright was born out of a brainstorming session between News Decoder’s Student Ambassadors – student leaders at our partner academic institutions – and Podium’s volunteer youth journalists. They agreed that a podcast series on global issues made for and by youth was missing– so they made one!
Since 2018, students in both our networks produced two seasons, with the third about to launch, of this international podcast series, meeting over Zoom to liaise with reporters and sound editors.
Podium.me and News Decoder’s partnership has not only managed to achieve the goals of the student visionaries who launched The Kids Are Alright in 2018 but continues to provide opportunities to work on an international project and give young content creators and journalists a chance to build their portfolios.
Season Three of The Kids Are Alright will launch in Fall 2020. If you’re interested in learning more about The Kids Are Alright, or if you’d like to get involved, click here for further reading.