We Matter Media Feature – Youth
Welcome to We Matter Media’s Youth month!
Allow me to introduce myself – I’m JB – The Creative Director of We Matter Media and a young person myself. I’m a 24 year old Melbournian who has been volunteering and working in the media industry since I was 17 years old.
We Matter Media was born out of a few different passions of mine. Community Broadcasting has played a major part in my development since a teenager. Australians are so lucky to have a medium and a platform that allows for their authentic voice to be heard. There’s really nothing else like Australia’s Community Broadcasting sector.
Through being involved with community radio stations Radio Adelaide and SYN Media I’ve met some of the most diverse and wonderful people from all across Australia. I’ve heard stories and perspectives I never imagined I’d experience and had more opportunity in my short life than I’d ever expected to have at this point. I am truly blessed.
For me, We Matter Media is about extending that experience further and affording the great opportunities that I’ve had to others. It’s about working towards a world where important stories are heard. It’s about a world where my voice matters, your voice matters and our voice matters.
I have been blessed to meet some of Australia’s most inspiring young people and call many of them my friends. So it feels apt to begin We Matter Media’s features with “Youth”.
Let me preface this month by saying that youth is just a number. Young people are just as diverse and complicated as any other part of the community. Don’t be fooled when you watch current affairs programs and see all the problems with “young people” today. I hope that over this month we can give you a diverse range of perspectives on what it means to be young in today’s society.
The one thing that young people have in common, is that the future is ours. We’re inheriting this world from the generations before us and it’s up to us to leave the world better than we received it. I’d like to make my mark by making the media better – by providing platforms and opportunities for more important and underrepresented stories to be heard. How do you want to make your mark?
I hope you’ll join in the conversation this month. Please chat to us through WeMatterMedia.com, Facebook or Twitter – We’d love to hear your stories. If you’d like to contribute to Youth month you can email our Features Editor Laura or you can contribute something outside of the feature topic to our Daily Editor John.
– Jonathan Brown
Jonathan is the Creative Director of We Matter Media. You can follow him @JB_AU
You can see where some of the ideas that brought together We Matter Media in this highly nervous (eek!) talk I did for TEDx Adelaide in 2010:
