An amazing year…

It’s been a pretty special year for us. Twelve months ago we were fretting about an upcoming name change, a big launch event at BAFTA and the start of a massive new project, thanks to a Big Lottery grant, which ramped up what we do and moved us into new areas.

We’re glad to say that one year on it’s gone better than we could have possibly imagined; as a name Headliners feels so natural now it’s odd to think we used to be called Children’s Express. Our launch rocked the socks off anything we had previously done; and we’ve now got three great new project workers doing amazing things in West London, South-East England and Newcastle and the North-East.

It’s been a big year of change for our projects in Northern Ireland; both our Belfast and Foyle bureaus have seen long-standing members of staff leave and fresh new faces take their place. We’ve had some great successes in the Province, including ten films made for the BBC over the summer and a cross-border radio project that involved 30 young people producing an hour-long show.

In London we’ve spent the year concentrating on improving what we do; and the results show with some brilliant pieces for Children and Young People Now, the Guardian and BBC London.

Our HQ team had its first full year as an outfit, and have spent large parts of the year developing our strategic direction and giving us a far better standing and understanding of where we need to be heading.

Nationally, our young people have been involved in making videos to support the Youth Opportunity and Youth Capital Fund, and they’ve continued to help recruit staff for 11 Million, as well as develop their strategy.

If you’d told us what we would have achieved this time last year, we wouldn’t have believed you. Which just begs one question: What wouldn’t we believe now that we will have achieved before next year is out?

From everyone at Headliners, we hope you have a brilliant festive period; and look forward to working together to do some pretty special things in 2008…

SOME RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

Losing their religion?
A group of young people we’ve worked with for the last few months decided they wanted to look at an issue they were particularly concerned with: when young people decide to turn away from the religion their parents raised them up as. It kicked off a debate both on our website, and on a site for Pagans in the US.
http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

How to stop a killing
The ongoing story of 2007 has been the number of teenagers killed by guns and knives on London streets. A group of Headliners reporters wanted to investigate how young Londoners were being affected by the problem, and what could be done about it. Read interviews with young people, a DJ, a police officer and two music artists.
http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

Seeing the potential
Young people with facial disfigurements got together to produce a website that provides help and support for each other. Headliners member Sarra Said-Wardell went to meet them, and produced an audio report that a BBC producer described as outstanding for a 12-year-old. Hear for yourself, and download that and other recent podcasts.
http://podcasts.headliners.org

A rubbish film
A team of Headliners members from Belfast made a film to teach other young people about the environment. The DVD was launched at a ceremony with Belfast Lord Mayor at his parlour. It’ll be distributed to schools across Northern Ireland for pupils aged between 8-10.
http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

Don’t forget you can see our latest work, subscribe to our RSS Feeds, download our podcasts and watch videos all at http://www.headliners.org

Make us feel wanted…
If you are bored over the Christmas break, why not spend some time on a computer doing

Not expecting this email? We’ve sent it to people we think will be genuinely interested in what Headliners is currently up to. However, if it’s not for you, then please let us know by following details at the end of this email.

What we’ve been up to recently

Peace on the Streets
Young people being involved in gun-crime in London is hardly out of the news. So a group of Headliners reporters are currently investigating the issue for a forthcoming article. As part of the report, they interviewed Choice FM’s Phoebe One, and we liked the conversation so much we’ve made it a podcast:

http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

Shoot the reality
Eight young people from Belfast got the opportunity to make short films about issues that concern them and their friends as young people growing up in the 21st century.
http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

(if you haven’t seen the features from BBC Newsline you can still watch them here: http://www.headliners.org/aboutus/pr...

Halloween with less spirits
Halloween has increasingly become a major event in Northern Ireland; but it’s been plagued by an increase in drinking among younger people. So Headliners reporters decided to see if they could get their spooks from a different form of spirits:

http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

What it’s like to be a young person today
A team of Headliners reporters spent the summer working on a story for sector magazine Children and Young People Now. They asked us to find out what it was really like to be a child in 21st century Britain; so our reporters visited young people in Birmingham and Liverpool as well as those in London.

Don’t forget you can see our latest work, subscribe to our RSS Feeds, download our podcasts and watch videos all at http://www.headliners.org

Headliners news

The annual Headliners conference took place on November 10th in London. We spent most of the conference looking at factors external to the organisation that influence what we do. The conference was opened by Matt Deegan, an industry expert on using new media. We then broke into small groups and planned some targets we hope to achieve by next year.

At the conference we showed a short video of some of the things we’d been up to over the last twelve months, you can watch it here

http://www.headliners.org/storylibra...

Three Headliners members picked up two prestigious awards at a ceremony in Northern Ireland recently. Lyra McKee and Emmet Barr were honoured for their reporting from an international AIDS conference in Canada in 2006; whilst John Monaghan got his gong for his Global Eye documentary called From Dreams to Reality.

The awards, presented at the Millennium Forum in Derry, were organised by the Impetus Awards Scheme which promotes human rights and shared values.

http://www.impetusawards.org.uk/

Ciaran McKerr has settled in his post as Belfast Project Coordinator, which he took over from Tricia Valladares who left us after four years in September. Tricia has been in Northern Spain for a six-week trek for charity – you can read more about it on her blog

http://triciaandgabyontour.blogspot.com/

We’ve been measuring up the new premises for our London and UK teams, based in RichMix. Subject to all the final negotiations, we are planning to move into in the first half of 2008.

http://www.richmix.org.uk

Coming up…

Watch out for 11 Million’s Takeover Day on Friday 23 November. Two members of Headliners in London will be taking over at 11 Million, one as the Children’s Commissioner and one as the press officer to deal with the enquiries. As part of the day they are planning to be on GMTV first thing before getting a train to Manchester to see Takeover Day in action at Old Trafford.

http://www.11million.org.uk/takeover...