2nd day of Media Kidocracy Konference

Good day my peeps! What did we do today? We were mostly in our groups, mine being Radio and the issue is drugs and alcohol. To begin we decided on a presentation to feedback to the other groups on our issue. We used the research from yesterday and also experiences we had had or seen in our lives to add to it. We began our presentation with the most popular drugs with the facts of the effects of taking them. Secondly, we asked the other groups to produce a role-play in their groups based on a drug. We chose 4 of the main drugs that affect their lives, for the other groups-
1. Marijuana –the TV crew showed how smoking marijuana can lead to making people steal to buy more.
2. Tik (Crystal meth) – the online group (Una’s group), did a role-play where they were in a club and one of their friends was tired so walked away from his friends (who were dancing like mad men). He then went to a drug dealer and took crystal meth. Following this he jumped all over the show to get back to his friends, and danced even crazier. I felt it really showed how taking a drug might be appealing to a young person because they might feel more alive and awake for a short while.
3. Cigarettes – Debs’ photography group did an extremely funny role-play, where she acted as the wife of one of the young people – he was in hospital because he had a really bad chest infection. He wanted a cigarette and Debs told him ‘no, their gonna kill you!’ He said ‘No, no my love, they wont, please give me the cigarette!’. Eventually he talked her round, but Debs left upset and annoyed. As she left the guy shouts ‘I still love you!’ – Very, very funny! Eventually the wee guy died half way through his cigarette. Debs is called by the hospital were the family cry their lamps out – Brilliant acting by them all, and best planned as far as the scenes went ☺
4. Alcohol – The final group was Shiv’s – the graffiti group. They showed how drinking can be sociable when used responsibly and also how some people can get addicted or use alcohol negatively – in this case they got very drunk and then started having fights with other people in a pub. When Shiv and another young person Luke, were play fighting, it looked scarily real :| hehe…

After this Safikyha and myself explained to people just some of the ways we thought we could help prevent young people from taking drugs.
- Be a Role model to friends and family.
- Educate young people of the effects of taking drugs.
- Have more activities available to young people to stop them from getting bored and needing something to do.
- We also thought it was important to let our friends feel apart of your circle of friends. Also to let them feel like they are apart of your family as some young people feel alone and isolated and so sometimes take drugs to get away from the loneliness or problems in their life.

One of the young people in our group then explained their experience of drugs and how they would never take them again. A lot of the young people clapped for the young person and seemed interested to know more.

The rest of the groups’ presentations were excellent and really gave a good insight into the facts of their issues they have chosen and also created excellent discussions for peoples personal opinions. Hopefully the footage of the day will be up on the PA /WIMPS website very soon ☺

We finished the day by finding out what we would be doing tomorrow. My group will be at Bush Radio, beginning our radio training! YAY! – I’ll be the next Terry Wogan – only I’ll be younger, and a lady! ! ! Well we can only hope and pray… you never know this could be my forte!

That’s all folks…. (I’m no bugs bunny that’s for sure ☹)
Caoimhe x

The Radio production group presenting their thoughts on drugs.

Today my group got down to talking about our issues and the how we would different mediums of online to get the message out there. We talked a lot about child labour and child trafficking, especially within South Africa. One thing that shocked me the most was that 32% of children in Africa are exposed the child labour – should this still be the case? Although on the other hand one boy in the group yesterday expressed that how at the age of 14 he would be more than happy to go out and work as it would mean there would be more food for his family to eat. This was a bit unexpected for me as coming from a society where children are in contrast to this they are really privileged I could not imagine having to do this myself. After all most young people in Northern Ireland get their part time jobs to have extra money to spend so that they can have the latest phone and go out with their friends at the weekends…we don’t think about what life is like for those who don’t have this luxury!!

Later on then during the presentations from all the groups I was also shocked that many of the young people there (mostly the boys) were in support for men being the head of the household and the breadwinner with the woman playing a inferior role – they seemed to be against gender equality. I suppose I was shocked because this is a big contrast to Northern Ireland where not only is it now part of society for women to also work but it is now also essentially in order to be able to pay the bills and provide for your family. I think that issues with gender equality here, in South Africa, are at a different level to back home. They are discussing about whether women should be given equal opportunities and treatment and we are discussing whether they should be paid the same wages as men (which they should ☺). After all if someone is able to do something they why should they be stopped?

We then talked to Adrian our technical facilitator for the online work. He talked to us about our different options for the mediums we could use and possibly links kidocracy to child exploitation. It sounds really interesting and I can’t wait to get started and to hear all the ideas that my group comes up with. Hopefully by the end of the week we are able to pull of a successful and impactful product for our issue.
Una xx

Today was the second day of proper work and I can say that I’m really glad to be getting on with it not that the past week wasn’t fun and all but I really wanted to do something like what we are doing. Tomorrow my group are starting the graffiti work I still feel uneasy about calling it graffiti, I think that if it’s well done and not too obscene or offensive its art, but anyway its not what I wanted to do I kinda got stuck with it but I’m pretty happy with it in side graffiti we are doing looking at langue and culture. So it should be interesting they told me to were cloths I don’t mind gating paint on so sounds messy. Also I saw some one today who I really fought was my friend Brittany but it obviously wasn’t, she would be in the wrong community for a start. Tonight we had dinner early at the place we first ate, they had mean burritos which are really really good. I’m starting to really like Mexican food, I want to try more.
Nathan aka shiv

Today it was good to get to know more of the young people attending MKK. I’m struck by the fact that it’s holiday time for the young people – their schools finished up for the year on Friday but yet they’re all attending MKK instead of chilling out with friends or working jobs to earn extra money for their families etc – that’s dedication! The young people are also a real mixture coming from all sorts of backgrounds and areas of Cape Town, some from townships, some not, so it’s great that MKK provides somewhere for them to get together and learn from each other. By NI standards I wouldn’t say that MKK is an overly slick operation but it’s the commitment of the young people that shines through – they’re passionate about issues facing them and the people around them in their communities, they’re proud to be S African, and they really want to make Cape Town and the world a better place. I think they’re very much the driving force of MKK and that’s what makes it a beautiful thing.

G’night!
DebsWe know the WIMPSmobile is pretty cool, but this is the business!