First day at the Media Kidocracy Konference (MKK)

Bush Radio DJ doing a sound check at the start of the conference

Well as Caoimhe said I haven’t went first with writing in the blog so thought I would give it a go. It was good to finally get down and do some work. We did our presentation, wasn’t when it was meant to be. It went well and big ups to Una for putting it together and I think everyone gave a very good way of putting PA out there and explained well what PA is and why PA is there. But way we all got split into smaller groups, but it was all good, my group was on language and culture. Well from the rim skipping to dinner where we had a great meal in this awesome restaurant, cant remember what it was called but it was great. Oh and I don’t agree with Caoimhe’s opinion on a band, but I respect it.
Nathan aka shiv

Today it was great to finally get down to doing some work with the MKK. Was good to see all the young people at Bush Radio pulling together to make it a success – which hopefully by the end of the week it will. After all the speeches and our presentation (which I was dreading :S) we were split up into groups. I was put into the online group which is looking at child labour and was given something to think about as it was pointed out to me that the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland are using a form of child labour when they give young people to sell drugs and get them involved in crime. It makes you think if we really have moved on – maybe in some ways but are we moving back in others? I think tomorrow is going to be really interesting for my group!!

The taxi man we got back from dinner gave us the funniest taxi journey I have ever had!! Firstly he couldn’t believe that we actually wanted the meter on. Then he wanted us, after only being here for 1 week, to direct as to where the hotel was. Finally we did get here in one piece but he was terrible at his tactics to make the meter go up more – just too obvious☺

Looking forward to see how tomorrow plans out and what the discussion is like within my group!

By the way its going to be 34 degrees here tomorrow :P:P (just thought I would rub it in)
Una x


The cheek of Una rubbing it in about the heat tomorrow, eh? It was a super hot, HOT, today and she could hardly stand it, when we took a short walk. So don’t worry the people of the winterlands, she is suffering for her smugness. ☺

The MKK went brilliant today! Again the young people are outstanding, presenting, interviewing and taking workshops. Two of the young people in particular headed up the whole event, by introducing key speakers and interviewing people in the media industry, with so much confidence and an extremely good working partnership between them. I really hope we can do something like the MKK back home as I feel the young people are more than capable of organising an event to get across their issues to policy makers and their communities. It is also fabulous to see the work and commitment the young people have put into their workshops, which they will run throughout the course of the week. Furthermore the facilitation skills of the young people involved are amazing, they show no lack of confidence.

PA’s presentation went well, although I must say Una and Shiv are much better public speakers than myself – they where fantastic at explaining the details of WIMPS and their personal experience of getting involved. There was me a nervous wreck describing the Away from Violence project! After my nervous shaking body and a voice with about ten frogs hopping about in it, we got to get the participants involved in some ice breakers. Now that is something that isn’t sooooo nerve wrecking for me ☺

Following fun and activities, we split into the workshop groups. I am the participant of self-inflicted violence, mainly looking at drug and alcohol abuse and the type of media we will be using to do this is, radio. Today however, we just looked at various drugs and the effects of them and also why people may turn to drugs and alcohol.

I am really excited to see how our project will develop, and also get some understanding around using radio as a media resource. The young people are already discussing things in great detail and I hope tomorrow we can debate more around people’s personal opinions. I look forward to finding about their personal issues in their communities around drugs and also sharing some of the knowledge I have of the issues of drug use in Belfast.

As for the rest it’s all sun and fun! ! ! Except for Shiv liking System Of The Down and Slipknot! Hehehe… only raking some bacon ;)

Till tomorrow, good morning, good afternoon, good evening and gooooooood night!
Caoimhe x

Delegates at the conference

Like the guys have said it was great to get stuck into things at MKK today. The opening ceremony of the conference was broadcast live on the radio as well (you can listen to Bush Radio live online you know!) and it was good that there were a couple of MPs attending the event and showing their support to the young people. It always cracks me up when people start going on about young people being the future and all that jazz – nice sentiments but what about young people making a contribution TODAY?!!! The cool things is that MKK is all about making that a reality and I was really impressed the young people from Bush Radio CREW – they don’t seem to shy away from tough questions, they’ve got great critical thinking skills, they’ve got passion and fire in the belly – class stuff. I was also really proud of our wee team doing our presentation – Shiv, Una & Caoimhe did a stunning job and once we got going I don’t think we wanted to stop playing the icebreaker games with the conference delegates! For the afternoon discussion session I was in a group which will be trying to address environmental issues – heavy enough material to be dealing with but our expert speaker today showed us a pretty cool video called ‘The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard’ – worth checking out.

Oh and yes it’s hot, but actually today was a heck of a lot better than yesterday and the night before – there were gale force winds for about 36 hours, locally they call it the ‘Cape Doctor’ – no idea why, it would do your head in after a while!

Need my bed people, g’night.
Debs