At Transom, we often feature work by and about young people. We are in a kind of golden age of youth radio these days, with groups working all over the country, many of them offering a chance to be heard to people who don't usually have it. That's good for them and for the rest of us. These programs are often more than just simple training; they capitalize on radio's therapuetic qualities of talking and listening, and determining what's true. Since 1994, Blunt Youth Radio has been working with kids in Maine. As founder Claire Holman says, Blunt is about, "youth empowerment through direct media access. The key is for our members to take responsibility for creating the show—from the first idea, to the features, to the live broadcast. It's their show."
Hey Claire (and anyone else who cares to respond),
Thanks for sharing these really great pieces.
Along with Jesse's question about funding...I'm wondering if you can speak a bit about how the (amazing?) relationship between Blunt and WMPG developed. Did you approach the station? How did you sell them the idea? What kind of oversight do they maintain?
Jesse Dukes (former long-term volunteer with our program with incarcerated youth -- Thank you, Jesse! Sadly, work took him to another state.) asks what would happen if "somebody guaranteed Blunt a quarter million a year...?" That amount is so huge-sounding. We have never run on more than $75,000 a year, and I sorely wish we were still running on that amount. Right now our funding is at historic lows, not including when we first started and it was all volunteer. Anyway, yes, it would make a difference in everything we do. Right now, for example, our outreach program with immigrant and refugee youth is really understaffed. I basically do it as an addition to what I already do. That breaks one of the rules of well-run programs: don't keep adding on without additional resources. We had a wonderful, long-term volunteer, Katie Freddoso, a Salt graduate, but she has moved on to other projects that have her traveling around, so she's simply not available. Anyway, if there were a realistic amount of funding, I would use it to pay myself full-time so I could quit my day job, I'd hire someone to help with various parts of the program, like the work with immigrant youth. I'd try to get my fabulous former assistant director, Kerry Seed, to come back after he finishes UC Berkeley J-School (but what are the chances of that?)
Right now, it is one of Blunt's great strengths that we really do let kids have lead roles in just about everything. But we also sometimes skimp on providing as much support and training as we could. We're really understaffed right now, and that takes a toll.
If I had real money, I would hire someone to do development work for us. That would be so wonderful. I would also use some for some stipends for Blunt members who are engaged in special projects. I try to do that now, but often I just can't.
But, could we have saved Joey? Joey Thompson has amazing talent, but he has had a very hard life, living with parental alchol abuse and the attendant patchy parenting, parents who are involved in the criminal justice system, poor experiences at school, a lack of positive adult and peer role models -- so, so much. As much as I think our work with young people does make a difference in their lives, I am not convinced that Joey could really have made a major turn around based on Blunt alone.But, who knows? It would have been great to have been able to try.
Thanks for the comments, Jesse and everyone else, too.
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