Young people produce inspiring podcast to aid mental health

Brian McNamee project co-ordinator for Springhill Park Area and Residents Association explained how the podcast idea came about.

He said, “At the start of the year the young people in Springhill decided to think of ways to have a positive impact on young people within the Strabane area, but with the chance of also helping others further afield. They settled on the topic of mental health and how it affects young people in different aspects of life – how it impacts them through school, friendship, anxiety, poverty, gambling, suicide, fame, positive thinking and how different people deal with certain situations and how their mental health is impacted. They decided a podcast to let people hear them interviewing adults with these issues but directed and questioned by the young people from the youth project would be the best way.

“So when the young people decided what they wanted to do, the staff of Springhill started working out how best to give the them the tools they need to make this reality. The staff had an idea of bringing other groups in to help them set the podcast up, give them the proper training and skills that they’d require to run a successful and information based podcast, but with the right guidance and equipment,” Brian explained.

“We approached our local mental health group called The Koram Centre to design four weeks of information-based training so our youth would be able to deal with basic advice on mental health. We then  approached our funder at The National Lottery Community Fund to ask could we redirect some funds towards this project, they were only too willing to accommodate us and have backed the project ever since.

“We then approached Inspire, and then the project came to life really quickly, they couldn’t do enough to back the young people’s idea, they provided all equipment needed, new MacBook, headphones, microphones everything you could imagine that was needed.

“It was then over to the young people to start their roles of editors, researchers, recorders, interviewers. How they have taken to those roles did not surprise us one bit, these young people are passionate about what they want, and mental health is a topic close to their hearts. Over the last few years our community has suffered a lot – we have had young people taking their lives, living in fear of paramilitaries, young people living in poverty within the area, as we sit in the heart of child poverty with Northern Ireland. So they wanted to make a positive change and give themselves a voice for people to listen to, but also give young people a platform to listen to other young people’s issues.

“Our podcast is now live and all our podcast will be backed up with supporting information on our Instagram page, which people can find by scanning the QR code you’ll see all over Strabane.

“We aim for this podcast to release five new podcast interviews every six weeks, and have this continue with our youth for the foreseeable future to help young people have a voice”