��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility Feed

Elaina Boateng - reaching full potential

2017-01-14T17:21:19+00:00

Elaina Boateng shared her own career journey as she co-hosted an evening to inspire young people from Hackney looking for their big breaks in the world of work.

‘This ��̳ outreach project taught me the importance of diverse recruitment’

��̳ Outreach’s event is one of the most rewarding and entertaining I have been a part of since I began my career at the ��̳, three years ago.

I have always been passionate about helping young people reach their full potential. As a graduate of Mama Youth Project, a charity that helps BAME 18s-25s get into the media industry, I have seen the impact the charity has had on my career, by installing self-belief in me, so this is something I am determined to pass onto my generation of BAME professionals.

The project gave young volunteers from Hackney CVS the opportunity to plan their own employability event to be held in New Broadcasting House, and with the help of ��̳ staff volunteers as facilitators.

We met up with the young people to plan what elements they wanted to include in the event, who the key speakers for them would be, and how to best meet their expectations.

Monthly meetings made for a great event which involved food, performances, workshops in CV and personal branding, plus keynote speakers Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth and entrepreneur Florence Adepoju.

I had the privilege of co-hosting this in the 4th floor collaboration zone, which was transformed into a vibrant careers event with over 40 young people there. My co-host, Sade Okusi. one of the talent scouts from Hackney CVS, helped me lead it with confidence and high energy. After expressing how nervous she was before the event began, it was rewarding to see her flourish as it went on.

As the first event I have ever co- hosted; I was certainly stretched and challenged to keep it lively, engaging for a diverse audience and more importantly, on time. Additionally, running the ‘my brand’ workshop for the young people helped us all see how useful the device of a newspaper front page was a practical means to outline our skills. We all left with our own ‘newspaper headline’ to sell ourselves – ��̳ people as well as the guests.

Since the event, I am still in touch with some of the young people and I hope to be able to contribute to more of their personal events and enterprises in the future.

As a production coordinator by day, I help to recruit work experience, runners and production management assistants. Working with the young people of this ��̳ Outreach project has taught me the importance of diverse recruitment, to help create television content that represents our diverse country.

��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the ��̳ closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.

Dreams and determination

2016-12-02T09:49:42+00:00

Anthony Williams drew on his determination and dream of working in the media to coach and inspire young adults from Hackney to realise their own ambitions. He helped plan and run an event with young adults to take a fresh look at their employability.

‘They could relate to my perseverance not to give up on my dreams to work in the media’

I have a passion to reach out to our younger diverse audiences within my role. The ��̳ Outreach event with Hackney CVS - called ‘��̳ Link Up’ - was designed for young adults to understand the different job roles within the ��̳ and for them to meet some staff and find out how they gained their roles.

I was a facilitator, helping young people with CV coaching, telling them about my journey, and acting out a hiring role in a mock job interview.

The most challenging parts of this project were to create something that would be informative as well as entertaining, and bringing together the visions inside and outside the ��̳ for it.

I volunteered to meet up for some evenings with Hackney CVS to rehearse with the team. The scenario of a mock interview at the ��̳ changed as we developed it – even changing on the day of the event. Using my improvisation skills, I was able to develop a fun yet informative role play for our audience to observe and feedback on.

Anthony, second right, at the ��̳ Link Up with Hackney CVS

It involved creating an interview with a ‘candidate’, based upon his good-versus-bad body language and engagement during interviews. Our young people observed and gave their thoughts on his different styles. I learned more about young people during the CV Clinic, and I believe I provided them with vital coaching in order for them to create a compelling CV.

I was also able to grasp what their feelings are towards major broadcasters such as the ��̳. Some said they never thought they could work for the ��̳ as it seemed so corporate. This was challenged during the event through discussions and through meeting new ��̳ colleagues such as apprentices, and by having Charlie Sloth from ��̳ 1Xtra talking about his story.

A mass selfie moment with Charlie Sloth

The most rewarding moment for me was to share with nearly 50 people my inspirational story of how I managed to obtain my role at the ��̳ after many unsuccessful attempts. I must say that some audience members were very emotional about this, as they could relate to my perseverance to not give up on my dreams to work within the media industry.

I believe I have learnt a lot about young people and I hope to pass this on to ��̳ Comedy with regard to developing shows that appeal to our younger audiences, and which could potentially start with ��̳ Three as our online channel.

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Elaina Boateng - reaching full potential

Dreams and determination

��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility Feed