About the BBC Feed

BBC Outreach at Wild Place Project in Bristol with the next generation of Attenboroughs

2016-11-02T13:00:00+00:00

This week David Attenborough’s landmark documentary series Planet Earth II debuts on BBC One. To coincide with the series, the BBC Natural History Unit has worked with BBC Outreach giving fifteen students the chance to make their own short online documentary based at the Wild Place Project at Bristol Zoo. Jon Jacob went along to learn from them.

Watching other people do the thing I love doing is a bit of a treat.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t judge other people when I film people younger than me making a video short. That would be a distinctly unpleasant thing to do.

Between you and me, filming other people learning about how to make video packages is actually rather nerve-wracking.

First of all, there’s the pressure of knowing you’ve only got one take, that you’ve got a limited selection of questions at your disposal and you’re working with people who have limited media experience. And there's the worry that they well look on you as an expert. Failing to live up to that expectation could cause all sorts of minor reputational issues, both for and the organisation.

One participant for the BBC Outreach / Planet Earth project shared with me what his first experience of making video was, explaining that he was inspired by his Dad who bought an HD camcorder in a car boot sale. A few short videos published to YouTube and he was reaching out to his school friends looking for ways to improve the production values of his creations. By my simple maths he was doing that around about the time I started making videos, with a HD camcorder my partner bought me from Christmas twelve years ago.

I spent my afternoon with the BBC Outreach team asking the participants on the Talent Ticket programme what had surprised them and what they’d learnt on the three-day programme. What they didn’t realise was the extent to which they were teaching me, helping me improve on my production processes in the bargain.

Planning is important. Being on time is also vital. Flexibility is a necessity.

I was reassured by the last point. I’d always rather admired programme makers who able not only to have a vision of what they wanted, but were able to direct their contributors in such a way that the material they ended up with both fitted the bill and remained authentic. I'd assumed that my preference for flexibility masks an unwillingness on my part to plan down to the finest detail.

What I realise now - as a result of talking to the participants - is how that success is not down to precision or control as much as trust. Having a good idea of what you’re looking for is vital but being flexible enough to clap your hands together with joy (metaphorically and not when the microphone is on) is even more important.

There was one thing I overlooked being in the company of 15 student filmmakers – the energy that exudes not just from individuals but from the group combined. That kind of energy is infectious and inspiring.

When I interviewed them, I wanted them to shine. I think they did. When I went home I felt shattered. That what’s adrenaline does to you when it finally trails off.

"We were the media" - BBC Outreach’s Media on the Move conference

2016-07-19T13:45:00+00:00

"Our people were the media until people got radios and televisions and telephones. We were the walking people, the Pavees" - the words of Thomas McCarthy – an award-winning Irish Traveller and singer speaking and performing at BBC Outreach’s Media on the Move conference.

Thomas was talking and singing about a time when Gypsies in Ireland told the news of the day, walking from place to place and made welcome by the people they visited: the name Pavee gives a clue, its origins the same as pavement.

As a contrast, in more recent times, the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community have become separate from the media, there’s suspicion on both sides and the treatment of this community in the media has often reinforced the prejudices many of them face in everyday life.

The purpose of Media on the Move, which was held in partnership with Travellers’ Times and the Rural Media Company, was to encourage more informed coverage by the media through offering a rare chance to meet individuals from that community, outside of an immediate production or news environment. There was also the opportunity for people from the community to increase their understanding of how the media works by talking to reporters, producers, scriptwriters and the like.

This was the second in a series of conferences aimed at bringing BBC staff closer to communities they portray – the first was ‘Who Benefits? TV & Poverty’.

During the day, we shared a passion for story-telling, we also shared our ideas of what good and responsible portrayal of the community in the media should look like.

Damian LeBas

There were surprises on both sides – for those from the media, a first hand account of what it feels like to be on the other end of a harsh radio interview from Travellers’ Times Editor-at-Large, Damian LeBas: “I’ve had some really tough experiences on local radio. More than the presumption that we’re all the same, it’s the presumption that we can take anything and it’s not going to hurt us if you have someone, for example, accusing us of incredibly disgusting racial stereotypes.’

Damian also spoke about media perceptions of Travellers as transient, different from ‘residents’: “In fact, we are deeply entwined with the geography of the country and not just parachuted in. He backed this up by sharing the history and culture of the community through poetry and a stunningly beautiful film The Oldest Show on the Road. It was erudite, fascinating, inspiring, moving – a history I’d never heard before, and I don’t think many of my BBC colleagues had either.

Understandably, this was the first time many members of the community had been to the BBC. One comment was: "I wasn’t sure what to expect to be honest and I was nervous but I knew if Travellers’ Times was involved it would be safe for us, but there was no need to be nervous, I felt so welcomed and confident and listened to – and no one ever listens to us, please thank everyone at the BBC for making us feel so important."

As the conference progressed, it became apparent that this community is taking hold of the media in its own right, telling stories from their own point of view, often driven by anger and frustration at media stereotyping. Editor of Travellers’ Times Mike Doherty introduced members of the community who were doing just that.

Betty Billington

Betty Billington, whose family had lived for 300 years in Christchurch, Dorset, got fed up with stories in the local press about unlawful encampments and rubbish. She set up a local group involving the local authority, investigated the sources of these (inaccurate) stories and started to pitch new and different stories about the community to the local newspaper editor.

Sherrie Smith went on a media course, originally with the idea of making videos to teach floristry online to Gypsies and Travellers, part of her business. She’s gone on to write articles about the things that are important to her – things she wants everyone to know about: “I’ve written about a little Gypsy girl who wins beauty pageants, I’ve written about racism, I’ve written about the Romany resistance in Auschwitz." Sherry is just about to launch a website for reporting Romany hate crime.

And there were many other examples of this community making and changing the media – perhaps now owning the news themselves in same way as Thomas McCarthy’s forefathers did walking the paths of Ireland.

Diane Reid is Head of BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility

A matter of death and life

2016-02-02T15:18:48+00:00

Murder Games tells the true story of Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old schoolboy who was lured to his death after being groomed online by Lewis Daynes.

It was a very different type of film première.

A small cinema in central London - a family, their friends, teachers, youth workers, the national press. And at the heart of it all, a powerful and disturbing film - about a talented and much loved 14-year-old boy Breck Bednar who had been lured to his death by an online predator.

I was at a screening of BBC Three’s 'The Life and Death of Breck Bednar', part of an event organised by the BBC’s Outreach team to raise awareness of the dangers of online grooming, with an expert panel and teaching resources from BBC Learning. It was one of a number of events organised by BBC Outreach to maximise the impact and reach of the programmes we make.

The film, a docu-drama which includes interviews with Breck’s family and friends, as well as reconstructions of the events leading up to his death, starts with the chilling phone call made by Breck's murderer Lewis Daynes to the police shortly after Breck died.

The film is difficult to watch at times - although there’s warmth and even humour - but it’s an important film and vital viewing for anyone who knows or cares about young people and the risks associated with the internet. It includes interviews with police investigating officers as they piece together how Lewis groomed Breck over a period of time, turning the social gaming he loved into a means to separate him from his family and friends.

The screening was followed by a stunned and respectful silence. There was a pause - and then Breck’s family and friends walked with quiet dignity out of the auditorium. The panel chair, Radio 1’s Tina Daheley explained that Breck’s family wanted a moment to gather their thoughts.

And then they returned - Breck’s mother Lorin LaFave taking the stage with two other speakers - Jonathan Baggaley from CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) and Kat English, the film’s Director.

After Breck’s death, his family, including his mother, father and three younger siblings agreed that they wanted something positive to come out of their great loss - so they are committed to spreading the word about the dangers of online grooming. Participating in the film and attending the screening was part of that commitment.

During the panel session which followed the screening Lorin talked about the lengths she had gone to to protect her son - every parent listening could relate to what she had to say.

At one point during the discussion Breck’s mother was asked why she agreed to make the film with the BBC. Her response was that, although she had been asked many times if she would be involved with filming, she decided to go with the BBC because of the resources, like the learning materials and the Outreach event, that the BBC would bring.

BBC Outreach also organised a session after the screening where staff volunteers worked with teachers and youth workers on how the key messages from the film could be built into lesson plans. During this session they viewed three films commissioned by BBC Learning which covered issues such as stages of grooming, online safety and challenging perceptions of paedophiles, and used BBC Learning workbooks.

There’s a lot of information about online grooming available for parents and teachers, but the teachers involved in the workshops said what was different about these resources was that they were current and new and featured the voices and opinions of young people themselves. In this way, the film helps young people watch out for each other, something which has more credibility and resonance than being told what to do by parents or teachers.

This event brought together different parts of the BBC - BBC Three and its YouTube Channel, BBC Learning and BBC Outreach - all of us working in the spirit of true public service broadcasting. We felt a great sense of responsibility to Breck and his family to make the lessons they so painfully learnt available and accessible to all.

The main credit for the power of the film goes to Breck’s family and his friends for their bravery and determination to raise awareness. But I would hope that the work done by the production team and other parts of the BBC is a worthy support to their courage.

The film starts with Breck’s death, but goes on to talk about the life he lived, with a loving family and fantastic friends who shared his passion for gaming.

At the screening, Breck's friends wanted to make the point that although online gaming was the means used to groom their friend, it was also the way they supported each other after his death. It’s also the way teachers, parents, youth workers and children can download resources and learn more about keeping themselves and their friends safe.

This is very much in the spirit of the Breck Foundation which was set up by his family. The message is to enjoying playing games online but still keep it real with family and friends. In their words, to ‘Play Virtual, Live Real’.

Murder Games will be broadcast on BBC One at 10.45pm on Wednesday 3 February. It is also available to watch via BBC iPlayer or via the BBC Three website.
Read Siobhan Kilroy's post on how BBC Outreach helped make Murder Games.
Other sources of help, information and advice as well as the BBC Learning materials can be found on the BBC website.
Watch interviews with Breck’s mother Lorin and his friends Sully and Max.
BBC Three goes online-only on Tuesday 16 February 2016; see the beta version of BBC Three's Daily Drop online now.

Technacool – A dynamite day

2015-02-10T10:41:56+00:00

Participants of BBC Future Media and BBC Outreach Technacool event at NBH

Technacool is a BBC Future Media initiative supported by BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility, trying to help young people find out more about the different jobs people do to keep the BBC’s online content going and encourage the technologists of the future – irrespective of gender. Here, Claire McLaughlin reveals what happened when a group of schoolgirls were invited to learn about IT careers at the BBC.

At the end of January, Technacool took over New Broadcasting House, with 84 girls joining us to learn about careers in IT. With activities taking place across most of the floors, it’s true to say our presence was noticed and we had over 40 members of staff taking part in one way or another to share their experience and advice. The day from BBC Future Media was supported by BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility as part of our commitment to promoting diversity in our staff and reflecting all of our audiences.

Six interactive workshops gave the 13-year-old girls a taster of an existing technology role at the BBC, and they all took part in a Tech Tour where they met staff working to keep Radio 1 on air or creating engaging visual journalism graphics.

We heard from Ralph Rivera, Director of Future Media, at the start of the day, who talked about how his career in technology began and the turns it has taken – as well as why he thinks technology is an exciting place to be at the minute.

At lunch, we were joined by staff working at various levels who networked with our young guests and answered questions – as well as an external guest who came along to talk about careers in the wider technology industry.

Finally, we closed the event with senior managers working at the BBC discussing where they think technology is heading in the next 10 years and tips from their own careers. The girls had some very interesting questions in every session.

Some of the participants were also School Reporters, so they took pictures to feature on the BBC News School Report page – you can see their pictures and learn more about the project teaching journalism skills to 12 to 16-year-olds here.

It was a dynamite day but an engaging one too and I think we helped the girls understand that technical careers can be diverse and wide-ranging – as well as fun and creative! We understand that technology is constantly changing and brings with it new challenges, so we’re keen to help break down stereotypes of what the jobs are and, most crucially, who does them. The key to challenging the gender imbalance across the IT industry is reaching girls at a younger age and encouraging them to study subjects that will equip them to undertake these careers. Hopefully, Technacool will inspire some of them to think again about what technology means and encourage them to take related GCSE options.

Claire McLaughlin, Head of Interactive Technical Advice and Contracts Unit, BBC Future Media

Read also Lyn Picken’s blog It's Technacool to make it digital
And Diversity in Tech: Women in Tech and Technacool

The centenary of Hartlepool Bombardment – how we covered the stories of 100 years ago

2014-12-19T14:56:05+00:00

On 16th December 1914 Hartlepool on the North East coast was the site of the first civilian deaths on UK soil during the First World War.

More than 100 people were killed as a thousand shells blasted the town for 40 minutes from three German ships (Blucher, Seydlitz and Moltke) shortly after 0800. Among the casualties was Theo Jones – the first soldier to be killed on British soil in the First World War.

BBC Tees’ coverage of the centenary of the Hartlepool Bombardment was one of our most ambitious projects to date, and one that was months in the planning.

We realised early on in that planning that it was a vast project likely to appeal to a national audience as well as those served by the BBC local radio station for Hartlepool, BBC Tees. It was also clear that to do justice to the events of that day, our coverage would need to cover not just radio, but also television, online and social media.

Two journalists led on covering the stories from the Bombardment – Jonathan Swingler and Lee Johnson - and whilst researching their stories they came across the Teesside Archive and a collection of around 600 tapes containing previously unheard audio. These tapes contained stories recorded in the 1980s of elderly Hartlepool residents, many of whom were children when the shells struck the town. A broadcast assistant sifted through all the material and pin pointed what was the most important and emotive recollections. They all recalled what they were doing at the exact moment of the first shelling, as the fear and enormity of it all began to take hold. To uncover this unheard audio was an exciting discovery for our team and it proved to be the starting point of our Outreach project.

After digitising the stories, we then took them to Dyke House School in Hartlepool and played them to a group of teenagers who had all volunteered to be part of the BBC Outreach project. Kate Fox, a performance poet and writer based in North Yorkshire, led a weekly discussion at the school working with a history teacher and Helen Amess from the BBC Outreach to discuss the audio, and what the teenagers felt when they heard the accounts.

What struck the school children most was that the people telling these stories were no longer alive and that many of them had been teenagers at the time of the attack – the same age as themselves. They all said they felt they had a responsibility to tell these stories and to keep the memories alive for future generations.

Ceramic poppies form Hartlepool Bombardment memorial

They produced a poem which they performed as part of the moving ceremony which saw a new war memorial unveiled to the civilian casualties of the Hartlepool Bombardment. The 130 people who died that day were publically named and remembered, as children from a local primary school planted a ceramic poppy, originally part of the Tower of London installation, one for each casualty.

Our coverage of the Hartlepool Bombardment started early in the morning on 16th December with a special Breakfast Show presented by Ali Brownlee, taking listeners back to the day with real-time reports to coincide with the historical timings of the attack. At around 0750, just as the sun was coming up, we managed to pull off a successful broadcast from a small fishing boat out at sea containing one of our reporters, David MacMillan.

David MacMillan broadcasts from the North Sea, where the Germans fought from on December 16th, 1914

The idea behind this report was to give the perspective of the German boats out at sea, looking back inland towards Hartlepool just before they started their attack on the town. It was a great relief to pull this off as it was probably the part of the broadcast with the biggest potential to go wrong.

The logistical and technical challenges didn’t end there, with a total of six different live sources and six local presenters and reporters across Hartlepool and Whitby contributing to that hour. Our Engineer John Proudler deserves great credit for the smooth overseeing of such a difficult live broadcast.

Later in the afternoon, BBC Tees’ Afternoon Show came live from the Borough Hall in Hartlepool where guests assembled to enjoy an afternoon tea dance, exhibition and poetry recitals.

In the months prior to the centenary, we had successfully secured funding to send our reporter Jonathan Swingler out to Germany to visit Heligoland naval museum to speak to historians about the German mood before and after the Bombardment. He managed to secure access to one of the ships Commanders’ diaries and read inside how the commander felt before the mission to Hartlepool

Jonathan also looked at archive material of German newspapers reporting on the attack and even took a piece of shrapnel found 100 years ago from Hartlepool back, to place in situ next to one of the gun barrels from the war ships.

Photo by BBC reporter Jonathan Swingler of Hartlepool shell fragment next to Seydlitz gun barrell in Germany

The material he gathered in Germany ran across BBC outlets including the national BBC bulletin at one o’clock, BBC Look North, BBC Tees and online and were a good example of original journalism which we wouldn’t have been able to do without the additional funding.

These examples of looking at the Bombardment from the German perspective were seen as a new way to cover this well-known local story and received praise from many people including Mandy Southcott, Vice-Chair of The Heugh Gun Battery in.

The dedicated Local Live web page of the Bombardment, delivered by Kristie Kinghorn with Rachel Kerr, was the second most viewed page on the BBC website on the afternoon of 16th December.

As well as real-time reporting of historical events as they unfolded, the website also contained ‘Then and Now’ images showing the damage and after effects of the bombardment alongside present-day images of the buildings.

It also carried video footage of several reports including the Imperial War Museum material (also played out on BBC Look North) of a joint funeral of two previously unknown sailors who were buried in Middlesbrough. Hartlepool Borough Council’s history expert, Mark Simmons, revealed to the BBC that his research had finally identified it as the funeral of Ralph Weston Hook and George Charles Martin Flynn.

It’s been thrilling to be part of such an ambitious project, and inspiring to see how imaginatively and authoritatively the BBC Tees’ team delivered it. BBC Tees was honoured to be named ‘Station of the Year’ (under one million) at the Radio Academy Awards this year, and the judges commented that the station was clearly “dedicated to serving their audience with flair and passion”. I believe the team demonstrated that with their work on this coverage.

We are now planning a radio documentary from the Hartlepool Bombardment coverage to go out over Christmas on BBC Tees, and we’ve had discussions about some of the audio and pictures we gathered being used as part of the display at the Heugh Gun Battery visitor attraction. Dyke House School are continuing to develop the Outreach work using the poem the children wrote with Kate Fox for educational purposes.

BBC Tees had to creatively approach a story from 100 years ago, which was well known to many locally, and do it justice. We worked in collaboration with several organisations and partners and thanks must go to Hartlepool Borough Council, Teesside Archive, Imperial War Museum and Heugh Gun Battery.

With their kind support, we hope that we honoured the momentous events of a hundred years ago.

Dan Thorpe is Managing Editor, BBC Tees.

A 500 Words challenge

2014-01-22T14:51:29+00:00

Writing can be hard. Never mind writer’s block, the very motivation to put pen to paper can be elusive. So thank goodness that BBC Radio 2’s 500 Words competition is back offering children aged 13 and under the incentive to write an original work of fiction in no more than 500 words.

The stories will be judged in two categories, 9 and under, and 10-13 years. First prize take home Chris Evans’s height in books (6ft 2”), second prize winners get a stack of books the same height as Alex Jones (5ft 6”), and bronze place winners get a pile of books measuring up to their own height.

And if the competition and prizes are not motivation enough to get the ideas flowing, the 500 Words website has lots of inspiration, including a video featuring celebrities sharing their favourite words – and writing tips. You’d never guess Eddie Izzard and Rob Brydon’s, and Chris Evans’s is downright obscure.

The Alphabot is here to help! Just press his tummy to get five words to start your story

The site also has a new feature for this year’s competition – Alphabot – an online robot who will generate five words to inspire you. Last year the word most used across all the stories entered was ‘Mum’- as one myself that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

There’s also a free downloadable learning pack and you can read winning stories from previous years, or hear them being read at previous year’s finals by the likes of Miranda Richardson, Michael Ball, Michael Palin and others. The quality and variety is quite astonishing. 2013 Bronze winner Archie O’Dair’s piece starts:

“There is a man watching me. He doesn't think I know he's there, but I do. He was there yesterday too staring at my home as if he is waiting for something. He carries some sort of machine and it is making me nervous. I am scared and don't want to go out so I am sitting here watching him back.”

Intriguing no? You can read the rest on the 500 words site.

Once you’re 100% happy with your story (you can only enter once) you need to submit it through the site the deadline is 7pm on Wednesday 26 February.

This year’s judges are TV presenter Richard Hammond; author Francesca Simon; Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman; actor, comedian and author Charloe Higson; and Frank Cottrell Boyce the writer behind the London 2012 Opening Ceremony. Frank’s also recorded his writing tips for the competition.

Volunteer judges are also sought to help sift through the entries (last year there over 90,000 stories submitted) – the team are looking for teachers or librarians who can read a batch of about 30 stories in early March. Find out how to apply here.

The top 50 authors will all be invited to the 500 WORDS Final on Friday 30 May to hear the winners announced live from the Hay Festival on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, which attracts an average weekly audience of 9.35 million.

And I’ve fulfilled my brief from Jon Jacob – write about 500 Words in 500 words exactly. Done.

Hannah Khalil is Digital Content Producer, About the BBC Website and Blog.

Read all about the competition, see resources and enter at the 500 Words site.
Read the press release on the Media Centre.

Opening the door to BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility

2014-01-17T13:21:37+00:00

BBC reading volunteers with local school children

Ahead of the first of this year’s application deadlines, Project Manager, Liz Woodham shares details of the current BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility scheme, Community Doorway.

Every BBC member of staff has their values printed on the back of their security pass and one of those values clearly states: “Audiences are at the heart of everything we do.” That’s easy to understand when it comes to the BBC making programmes: we hear from our audiences when they want to contact us about a programme they’ve watched or listened to. But there are other ways we can make face-to-face contact with our audiences. And that’s where the BBC’s Outreach & Corporate Responsibility department comes in.

We mount a year-long programme of face-to-face activities, community support and volunteering projects. Through our work we try to ensure that the BBC has a positive impact in communities where we are a large employer - primarily Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, Greater Manchester, and Salford where we are currently based.

We have a strong track record of working with a diverse range of national charities over the years, including the creation of video content for the Samaritans, audio stories for Action for Children, a new website for National Prison Radio, storytelling workshops for Motor Neurone Disease Association volunteers and mentors helping the long term unemployed back to work alongside the charity Tomorrow's People.

There are staff all over the BBC who get involved in volunteering with us, some offer regular time to read with local school children, some give their skills and expertise to a one-off production or project, and others use the charity partnerships BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility have to give their time as a School Governor or trustee of a charity.

The Youth Challenge with BBC Marketing & Audiences and young people from North Manchester

Our latest project, launched in December 2013, is the BBC Community Doorway programme. This is a new scheme for charities and community organisations, who can apply to access the skills and expertise of our BBC staff volunteers to help deliver a one-off project. For example you may need support to create a short film to showcase the work of your charity, help to set up a website, or even to produce a community event of your own.

We are currently welcoming applications from charities and community groups in Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster, Salford and Greater Manchester that work with 16-24 year olds and/or groups that are considered to be disadvantaged or socially excluded. There are four application deadlines per year, the first is on 31st January 2014, but the application process is rolling so there are no cut off dates. All application information is on our website, including the application form itself.

We know from previous BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility projects that our BBC volunteers gain a lot working with communities in their local areas, and the groups they work with get to understand what else the BBC can offer them beyond broadcasting. For many young people, the experiences can be transformational and often spark aspirations of working in media.

Liz Woodham is Project Manager, BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility.

You can download the BBC Community Doorway application form here.
Read Diane Reid's blog about the BBC Corporate Responsibility Review 2013.

Reaching in and out

2013-09-20T10:37:33+00:00

Head of BBC Outreach, Diane Reid, gives an insight into the department’s recent projects including a poignant film made in partnership with White City Estate residents.

Earlier this week I attended a screening of Tales of the White City – an extraordinary musical from the composer Benjamin Till, created with over 400 residents of the White City Estate in west London. This is an area which has been home to the BBC for over 50 years.

The film is made up of stories about individual people living and working on the estate, generally using their own words which have been set to music. These are intimate portraits revealing deep feelings about life, past and present, on the estate.

A still from the musical Tales of White City

What was striking at the screening was the reaction of the audience.

At the end of each story, the audience applauded and whooped – affirming and celebrating the individuals – each of whom had been brave enough to reveal something very personal and important about their lives.

The reason the film works so well is that it was made as a true partnership between the individuals and the film makers. Those being filmed trusted the film makers enough to let them into their lives and to get to know them, and this is reflected in the film. There are no trite sound bites here, but real stories, told by individuals in their own voices. And that is what comes across on the screen.

As a former film maker, I know that the moment when someone reveals a little bit of themselves on camera is the moment when the film comes alive, when the research and patience and re-takes and frustrations of filming suddenly come good. Because at that moment you know that you have made an honest film, which truly represents that person and their views.

It is this honest relationship which is at the heart of the BBC's outreach work. Across the UK, the BBC connects to individuals and communities on a wide range of activities, ranging from work experience with Radio 1, to BBC Children in Need’s Radio 2 CarFest, to Stargazing LIVE.

The breadth and reach of this work is reflected in the BBC Corporate Responsibility Performance Review 2013, published today. It complements the BBC Annual Report and is a summary of the BBC's corporate responsibility work from April 2012 to March 2013. It's produced for licence fee payers as part of the BBC's accountability process.

In the report you'll find information about the BBC's commitment to developing STEM (Science, Technology Engineering & Mathematics) skills in young people and its Women in Engineering Group. There's an account of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales' accessible concerts for more than 3000 schoolchildren, including a special concert for deaf and hard of hearing children, where members of the young audience were able to touch the musical instruments as they were played.

Children participating in a BBC National Orchestra of Wales accessible concert

There's also information about the BBC's environmental work. We raise public awareness of the issues through our broadcasts. We also set ourselves targets to address our own environmental impact. This year we exceeded our recycling target by 14%.

We've been working hard to achieve other environmental targets. For example, those connected to our properties. We are moving out of older buildings (such as Television Centre which accounts for nearly a quarter of our energy usage) to newer ones such as Salford and New Broadcasting House in London, which were designed with green credentials in mind. But this takes time, and we've had to restate some targets for 2016.

The BBC has established 'albert' - a system of measuring the carbon footprint of programme making which has been adopted by organisations across the broadcast sector. CBBC's 'Wizards vs Aliens' - a science fantasy television series - is just one of the programme which has been piloting the next generation of albert, using hybrid generators on location to reduce CO₂emissions.

We're committed to working with local communities in skills development as well.

Across the UK, we run work experience programmes for young people from all backgrounds. In London, Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth welcomed sixth form students from Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster boroughs on a BBC Outreach work experience scheme to give them hands-on production experience, opening doors to a career in the industry.

In Bristol, the BBC has a partnership with the Domino Effect project, which works with people with a history of drug and alcohol abuse. The BBC is one of a number of organisations that have provided two week placements which are the first step back into full time work.

In MediaCityUK in Salford, where I work, we are in the second year of our Young Ambassador scheme. These are salaried six month entry-level work placements for 16-19 years olds from the boroughs of Salford and Trafford which enable them to gain core work skills and an NVQ qualification. The scheme is part of BBC North's commitment to the local economy and previous Young Ambassadors have already gone on to apprenticeships, jobs with the BBC, other paid work and college.

The BBC also runs schemes such as Extend for people with disabilities, and our new technology apprenticeships.

All of these are examples of the ways in which the BBC links with its audiences, informing and enriching the content we make. Outreach for sure, but ‘in-reach’ as well.

And on a wet Friday evening, at a screening in a school hall in Shepherd’s Bush, with a red carpet and a real première atmosphere, it was a privilege to be part of what can be achieved when the BBC and its audiences work together.

Diane Reid is Head of BBC Outreach.

Read The BBC Corporate Responsibility Performance Review 2013.
Previous year's reports are available to download on the BBC Outreach website.

Musical Extravaganza in the North East

2011-04-04T10:54:20+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/metro_musical.jpg

Travelling around Tyne & Wear became much easier in 1980, when the Metro opened to transport Geordies around the region. To celebrate the system's 30th anniversary last year, BBC North East and BBC Outreach worked together to create the all-singing, all-dancing Metro the Musical.

Written by Benjamin Till and performed by over 200 members of the public, the short film highlights some of the stories of people who travel or work on the Metro.

The film has just been premiered at the Sage, Gateshead, and BBC Outreach was there to meet the participants and other local opinion formers. The event was filmed and broadcast on BBC Look North, along with clips of the film.

You can watch Metro the Musical on the BBC News Tyne & Wear website.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

Connect & Create works with Fairbridge

2011-03-24T12:00:09+00:00

This external content is available at its source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoX1yc92MOU

As the team who work daily to place BBC staff as volunteers with charity partners, we know all too well that the "V" word can sometimes be misunderstood. Occasionally seen as a dusty, worthy word, it can conjure images of coffee mornings and bric-a-brac stalls. So its not always as easy as you might think to get people to embrace their inner-volunteer. That's why the Connect & Create team try hard to make our opportunities as vibrant and exciting as possible, and today's post is to tell you about one such project.

One day last summer Paul Corcoran of Connect & Create team beamed as he put forward his idea for a new project with our charity partner, Fairbridge. All we knew was that it involved a ship! As Paul outlined his idea, he explained that the charity, who work to give life skills to disadvantaged young people across the UK, had an exciting way of teaching the young people about team-work by placing them as crew for a week on a 92 foot tall ship, The Spirit of Fairbridge" moored off the coast of Oban.

Its not unusual for some the young people who qualify for this experience to turn it down, as the idea of crewing a tall ship is so far outside their realm of their experience and fear of the unknown can put them off. So Paul's idea was to make them a film for all at Fairbridge to see, tracking the experience of some of the young people aboard a 7-day sail in October.

We had no trouble finding the inner-volunteer among BBC staff for this one. Inundated with offers, Paul selected four staff who would benefit by bringing the learnings of the experience back into their day job. Ed Horne, who applied to gain skills to enhance his video edit career, said "The rain, cold and wind could not have been worse to film onboard. It was a brilliant opportunity to prepare us for what we may have to deal with on future programmes".

"The Spirit" is the jewel in the crown of Fairbridge, bringing together hundreds of disadvantaged young people each year to learn to sail. The challenge for the BBC volunteers was to shoot and edit a film that told the story of young people living onboard and sailing for the first time, in the hope that the film might help persuade other young people to take the challenge.

The final film is now being sent to all Fairbridge centres across the UK where it will be seen by over 5000 young people in the first year. The skipper of The Spirit, Mike Strang, was delighted with the film "This is such a valuable resource for staff and centres to use. We have never had anything like this that captures everything positive about the whole experience of life on board Spirit. It will help to inspire so many young people to challenge themselves in new and exciting ways".

Hopefully it may also help others to see that volunteering can be one of the most thrilling and meaningful ways of connecting with other people.

Glynn Ryland is the Manager of BBC Connect & Create

Read all about it - School News Day

2011-03-21T12:45:52+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/school_report.jpg

School Report is the project from BBC News which sees young students all over the UK developing news reporting skills - using lesson plans and materials from the School Report website. With support from BBC staff and partners, teachers help students develop their journalistic skills to become School Reporters.

The highlight of all this activity is School Report News Day, which falls in March every year. It's a chance for all participating schools to publish their own news reports simultaneously. Last year, over 25,000 young people from over 700 schools prepared and published reports on a variety of topics, covering local, domestic and international issues.

This year, the ambition is to be bigger still and we're expecting around 800 schools to take part across the UK. We'll have 7 hours of live coverage on TV and radio on the School Report website and the red button, as well as lots of coverage on other BBC news programmes.

Over 100 students will be on site for the first ever live TV broadcast from the BBC's new home in Salford, Media City UK, which will feature content from a range of schools, hourly headlines and interviews from students based in Television Centre in London.

The young people at Media City will work together to produce a live bulletin at 2pm for our red button and web services and the entire School Report TV channel will be directed from the studio gallery there.

School Reporters have also been asked to complete the School Report survey, which aims to provide a snapshot of the UK through the eyes of 11 to 16-year-olds. More than 23,000 students have already completed it, giving us a fascinating glimpse into their lives. If we're lucky enough to have good weather on Thursday, our 100 young people at Media City will become a human percentage figure on the piazza to represent some of the results!

Check the School Report website and the @BBCSchoolReport Twitter feed for updates throughout the day.

You can keep up-to-date with news about outreach projects from across the BBC by signing up for the BBC Outreach newsletter.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

Bringing the generations together in Bristol

2011-02-04T14:14:57+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/Bristol.jpg

I had the good fortune to be back in my home city of Bristol this week to see the launch of a new BBC outreach project Live In and Live On. We do many different projects across the country with young and older people but less common is combining the two. This is exactly what Live In and Live On is doing by bringing a group of elderly residents from the Easton area of the city into conversation with a group of twenty or so young people, most of whom have newly arrived in Easton, some the children of asylum seekers and all of whom do not have English as their main language.

It was particularly fascinating to hear some of the parallels between today's generation arriving in a new country and the experiences of immigrants arriving in Bristol in the 1950's & 60's.

Communications abroad to relatives and friends was and is still very important. But whereas the older generation had to wait weeks for the post, today emails and the internet have transformed the time such contact takes. And the BBC of course is constantly seeking to helps all sorts of people make the most of changing technology.

At this opening session the young people showed a film that some of them had made about the problem of modern day racism. Sadly a not so different experience to the older people's accounts of 50 years ago when hospital patients would sometimes ask a black nurse not to touch them or white people would move on the bus if a black person sat next to them.

This particular project has an extra ingredient. Local artists involved with sculpture, pottery, photography, painting and ceramics will be working with the children to interpret the older generation's personal stories into pieces of art. It promises to be quite an experience and challenge for all involved.

This type of project gets the BBC right into the heart of local communities, getting to people that our broadcasts don't easily reach. In turn projects also inform our own staff and often lead to great new content for online, radio or television. I'll be watching closely to see how this works out and I'll be returning to Bristol on Saturday 2 April to see the artwork exhibited at the Easton Community Centre.

Alec McGivan is the Head of BBC Outreach

More about BBC Outreach

'Step Up' supports new voices in journalism

2011-02-02T15:00:00+00:00

Like many jobs in media, journalism can be difficult to break into, especially for young people who don't have the advantage of having 'a foot in the door' of the industry. That's why the BBC's Connect & Create programme runs Step Up, an annual scheme that supports budding journalists by giving them skills in news production, right in the heart of BBC newsrooms. The scheme runs in London and Glasgow and just launched in Manchester at the end of last year.

The aim is simple: Give 15 trainees the skills they need to find and report news stories from their own local communities. Then support them as they do this in a professional news environment. The result is a network of community journalists who can take their skills on with them into other journalistic work, whether that's with the BBC, with other broadcasters or with local community news projects.

The Connect & Create team love running Step Up, not just because of the insightful stories that the Step Up-ers manage to find, but because of the support networks that grow out of putting such a diverse and enthusiastic bunch of people together over a 10 week period.

Past Step Up trainees often tell us that the scheme launched new opportunities for them, mostly because of the other people they met along the way. Rob Carroll, a student from Salford whose TV report was broadcast on North West Tonight, says: "The experience I've picked up on this course will stay with me forever, I can do anything with it."

In 2011 we are running Step Up in London, Glasgow, Newcastle and Media City in Manchester.

Glynn Ryland is the Manager of BBC Connect & Create

You can find out more about Connect & Create on the BBC Outreach website.

BBC staff volunteering in West London

2011-01-21T10:30:59+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/nov10-403.sm.jpg

On Monday night this week BBC Outreach hosted an event to celebrate and encourage our connections with the community in West London especially those in and around White City, the home of the BBC's largest working site. The idea of the get together was to give local partners, organisations, residents and staff a great opportunity to talk to each other. It also gave the BBC the chance to highlight some of the work we are already doing in the local community through our staff volunteering to support a range of different projects.

One of the schemes we referred to was the school reading scheme we manage with the Hammersmith and Fulham Education Business Partnership. A considerable number of our staff give up their lunchtimes once a week to visit local schools and spend time reading with the pupils. Some are struggling with reading in the classroom and they really benefit from the one-to-one attention they receive. One of these volunteers, Simon Broad, spoke about his experiences and the value he himself gets from taking part in the scheme. It is clearly a two-way process of benefit to both participants. The children gain in self confidence. The reader gains a huge amount of satisfaction in seeing the child's abilities grow.

The event also gave us the opportunity to refer to several other projects including BBC lawyers volunteering to go into local schools to discuss legal issues of interest to the students; our long-standing support for the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and the work they do with many young people; our tours of Television Centre for local residents and our free screenings for local children notably the Doctor Who Christmas special in December. One of our newest projects is with Fulham Football Club, giving some of our staff the chance to volunteer to teach soccer skills to young people. To be fair to the loyalties of local residents I think we'll be starting a similar scheme with QPR shortly!

Our very latest project is particularly exciting as it involves young people in West London getting to know young people in Salford where new BBC offices will open in May. It is called 'Take Two' and will be asking our staff to volunteer as mentors to help young people improve their communication skills. We are very much looking forward to running lots of twinning activities with the students in both places. Indeed it was off to Salford I went the morning after our West London event. It won't be long now before staff start to arrive in our new offices there in Media City. BBC Outreach will be doing all it can to make sure we have a very active presence in the local Salford community.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

Connect & Create BBC Volunteers

2010-11-16T10:18:59+00:00

At some point in life everyone considers the idea of volunteering, giving their time and efforts to help others, and BBC staff are no exception. In fact I'd say that there is a strong altruistic culture amongst staff here and a requirement for the corporation to channel this energy into measurable projects.

We often hear from charities who say they are up to their eyeballs in people wanting to come and 'paint a wall' for them. We find that many charities are after something more meaningful, something that will resonate and leave a legacy for their beneficiaries. So the BBC has a small department called "Connect & Create" and we are, to all intents and purposes, the volunteering scheme of the corporation. It's a simple structure. We have formal partnerships with ten national charities and a smaller number of local project charity partners. We put together projects that place BBC staff into these charities in whole variety of ways.

Often we help the charities produce creative work, such as films or podcasts. Other times we place staff with specific expertise to lead workshops and run seminars. On other occasions they are involved in mentoring beneficiaries from all walks of life. Each project is unique and there is always lots going on, as we run projects all across the year and across the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/wk_group_1.jpg

Of course you can measure the numbers of staff and projects, but the real measure comes in the stories we hear from people. We hear some amazing stories and staff seem universally bowled over by the experiences they have sharing their skills in this way. My personal favourite is the team in Newcastle who mentored a group of disabled children in how to make a film about wheelchair access for their sports classes. The children did such a great job with their film that it was broadcast on Look North that same evening.

Glynn Ryland is the Manager of BBC Connect & Create

You can find out more about Connect & Create and see a list of its charity partners on the BBC Outreach website.