#iDare Magazine: Issue #17

For young people, by young people Issue

#17 Swindon's youth issues magazine

In this issue Cover story: Interview with a broadcaster Mindfulness tips Sanders Sides – YouTube series review Octopunk indy film maker Creative career paths Inside #iDare Magazine National writing challenge – join in!

Film Facts

Also read online:

www.idare.blog

FREE COPY

The #iDare Team Issue #17 Tyler

Welcome to #iDare magazine! #iDare is run by young people, for young people. The magazine team members are young people in Swindon who meet each Saturday to create and publish a range of content through articles, blogs, podcasts and videos.

We (the youth team) do everything – create the content, decide what gets featured, take photographs, shoot and edit videos and audio, manage the PR, marketing and social media, design the website and liaise with professionals and the public.

#iDare is supported by the #iwill fund, a joint initiative by the National Lottery and Department for Culture, Media & Sport. Any young person aged 13-20 (or older if disabled) can join the team or submit an article.

Get in touch!

I

20 year old Tyler's ambition is to work as a journalist and he's a big fan of eighties pop music

Jaqui

Works with young people in social care and volunteers for #iDare too. Busy lady!

Kate

#iDare project manager who's slightly ashamed of her addiction to Coronation Street

Dan

Dan is a weirdo

Riley

Passionate about writing (amongst other things)

Chloe

21 year old Chloe loves TV, books and games

Daniella

17 year old Daniella is into creative writing such as poetry

Josh

is 20, enjoying writing and video editing while social distancing for the past 20 years

Zach

Hello@iDare.Blog #iDare Magazine is published by The Platform Project Dunnock House, The Dorcan Complex, Faraday Road, Swindon SN3 5HQ Tel: 0300 030 1232 Issue #17 · November 2020

16, likes football, likes TV and movies

#iDare Magazine supported by:

Editor's letter: Issue #17

Contents

Issue #17

2

Tips on mindfulness

4

Sanders Sides: insightful YouTube series to watch

8

Cover story: Interview with a broadcaster

13

NaNoWriMo – your writing challenge this November

18

Dan's Film Facts

20

Octopunk: indy film makers

22

Inside #iDare – Zach's story

24

The Platform Project's creative careers help

Into Winter The clocks have gone back and days are getting shorter, so that means more time indoors for writing!

Issue #17 focuses on things to keep you occupied as winter starts and we all begin to spend more time indoors.

We've got film and TV reviews for you and information on a great, national writing challenge.

There are also tips on mindfulness if you find winter and the current Covid situation tricky, and a great interview with a local broadcaster for people interested in media careers.

Got news, opinions or information you'd like to share? Get in touch with us: hello@idare.blog

If you missed the re-launch issue, you can still read it (and all past issues) online:

#iDARE

Would you like to see copies of #iDare Magazine in your school or youth group?

Tell us about it!

www.idare.blog 1

Mending Mental Health with Mindfulness

Many young people can be affected by mental health issues as they begin their journey in life and learn how to deal with its challenges.

A common mental health challenge that young people may face is anxiety.

Anxiety is the body’s reaction to a situation in which you feel stress or fear. If you are in a situation where you feel frightened or worried your body can go into a mode called ‘fight or flight’. This is like an alarm system built into your brain which causes symptoms.

Primary anxiety symptoms can include: a racing heart, heightened senses and alertness, wobbly legs, feeling foggy or lightheaded, shortness of breath, excessive sweating and muscle pain. Secondary symptoms include having a sense of doom and believing you are dying. These are very scary experiences and often cause you to feel extremely isolated from the world around you. The most important thing to know if you experience anxiety is that you are absolutely not alone.

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Anxiety in young people is more common than many people realise.

It can affect all backgrounds and upbringings: 25.1% of young people between 13 and 18 years old are affected by anxiety disorders

Article by Daniella Page

When you begin to get anxious, you often have thoughts that can become overpowering and overwhelming. These thoughts begin to spiral and race through your mind and it is like a million cogs are turning at once. It can also cause the spiral affect to happen which is where one thought branches off to other worrying thoughts. This is what leads to panic attacks which is why it is important to transition from ‘mind full to mindful’. This helps to push the overpowering thoughts away and bring the focus to present tasks and experiences. Mindfulness is often thought about as sitting down for a certain period of time and doing some meditation. But it is actually a lot more varied than this and can be done in everyday life when you are anywhere.

Five core strategies of mindfulness

Observing: During busy days you can fall into the trap of analysing everything that happens instead of letting yourself sit back and directly experience it. Mindfulness observation helps you to break this habit and change your thoughts from the thinking stage’ to the ‘observing stage’. This involves being aware of feelings and body sensations using the five senses.

Describing: Describing helps you to be aware of what you are sensing by noticing every fine detail. This includes being descriptive of emotions. A way of describing your emotions could be ‘light’ or ‘heavy’ and ‘tense’.

Participating fully: This helps you to live in the moment by considering your experience as a whole without leaving out any details.

Being non-judgemental of yourself: This is one of the most important mindfulness strategies to master but it takes a lot of practice and time to develop.

You can be non-judgemental and kinder to yourself by not trying to control, avoid and label your worries and instead accepting what is happening.

Focusing on one thing at a time: It is natural for distracting thoughts to appear while you are being mindful, and it may be tempting to chase these thoughts. But you can be present by catching yourself being negative and calling your mind back to the ‘here and now’.

Websites: Youngminds.org.uk Anxietyuk.org.uk No panic youth helpline: 0330 606 1174 Childline: 0800 1111 Mindfulness apps: Calm and Headspace

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.... to be mindful

page 6 Important Issues Through the Eyes of Different Parts of a Personality

Sanders Sides Sanders Sides is a YouTube web series by Thomas Sanders where he tackles serious problems and tries to solve them by having conversions with different parts or ‘sides’ of his personality. The series was only meant to be a one off and more of a vlog which started on 19th October 2016 with episodes only between five and ten minutes long. Now the series includes story arcs for all the characters, a plot line, dealing with mental health issues and episodes between 30-45 minutes long. There is also a spin-off series called Sanders Asides (which has episodes not directly connected to the plot of the main series) with two episodes at the time of writing.

The creator, Thomas Sanders, plays all the characters since they are all parts of his personality. There the four main sides that appear in all or most of the episodes:

Firstly, there’s Patton who represents Thomas’ morality, his sense of right and wrong. He is emotional and humorous and represents the parental figure in the group and Thomas’s inner child.

Next is Logan who is Thomas’ logical and intelligent side. Typically, he points out the original topic of the conversation which the group must sort out.

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Roman is next who represents Thomas’ creativity, passion, fantasy and dreams. He also embodies his ego, aspirations and the romantic and passionate feelings.

Finally, the last main side is Virgil who presents Thomas’ anxiety, caution, vigilance and his fight-or-flight reflex. Much like Logan, Virgil is the voice of reason, but he does not attempt to solve the problems.

Two other sides have been introduced later on and are considered dark sides since not much are known about them. Janus is Thomas’ deceptive and sarcastic side and Remus is the dark side of creativity and imagination, the twin of Roman. There is also currently one unknown side that's not been revealed yet.

The series tackles a range of issues including moving on from a breakup, the moral dilemma of self-care versus selfless, embarrassing phases and mental illness. The first major issue that was tackled was two of the sides pitted against each other in a debate where they showed the complications of what the heart (Patton) wants and what the mind (Logan) thinks is best.

VIRGIL'S ANXIETY The first instance of talking about a mental illness is where Thomas and the Sides were discussing if anxiety is good. The episode starts with Thomas acting strangely he had no anxiety. Virgil has not turned up to join the conversation and this is where Thomas learns that each side has a room, but technically it is the corner of the mind. So, when they go to Virgil’s room, Thomas and the other three sides try to convince Virgil to return. A common theme throughout the series is that Logan references famous philosophers and studies to try and get his point across.

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The longer the sides stay in Virgil’s room, they gradually get more anxious, so Virgil gives them all a breathing technique to do that helps them leave the room. Once the episode ends, Thomas explains that there are possible upsides to anxiety and even shows important support phone numbers on screen if anyone is struggling.

INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS

Another topic is intrusive thoughts where Roman’s twin, Remus, is first introduced. In some episodes, a song is created to further talk about the topic in a uniquely fun and catchy way. Throughout the episode, Thomas struggles to get over his intrusive thoughts because of the disturbing things Remus says and does. Including making a sandcastle out of his friend’s ashes, jumping out of a moving car and eating a stick of deodorant. Thomas learns to just slow down and take a breather since it was Virgil and Patton’s reaction Remus that caused Thomas to have disturbing thoughts. Virgil compares intrusive thoughts to a common cold not a terrible illness.

SELFISHNESS VS. SELFLESSNESS

There was a plotline which caused Janus, the deceptive side, to be an important part of the story. Thomas had just received a casting call from a movie director which happened to be on the same date as a friend’s wedding. The two episodes centered on the dilemma whether Thomas should go to his friend’s wedding to support them or go to the movie call.

Thomas and Patton wanted to go to the wedding while Roman and Janus wanted to go to the movie call. Thomas and the Sides spoke about this in an interesting way by having a debate in a court room. Thomas and Patton were defending, Janus was the accusing, Roman was the Judge and Virgil was the Jury. Logan was there as the first witness but was forced to stay in the audience. They all took turns to the be the witness and give their thoughts and it was decided that Thomas should go to the wedding.

That decision was later talked about in the second part and discussed in greater detail.

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FANDOM'S RECEPTION

Sanders Sides was originally going to be a one-episode project for Thomas, but the fans loved the characters so much, that he is still making episodes today and the series is what Thomas is known for on YouTube. For most fans, the series have really helped them by relating issues to different sides of a personality while it can be good to just binge all thirty episodes for a distraction, especially during the current time, since the rest of the series is light-hearted and fun.

MY OPINIONS

I started watching after twenty-four episodes had been made in mid 2018 after being recommended the 'Accepting Anxiety' two parter on YouTube which is also a good place to start if anyone is new to the series. I was instantly hooked on the idea of the series and the characters. Virgil was the character I was immediately drawn too since I relate to him more and my personal favourite. The series has really helped since I started watching it, mainly the episodes talking about anxiety after struggling with it myself.

The characters interacting with each other can just be entertaining enough because of their different personalities even though they are not real, and are part of a single personality.

If interested, the series is currently available on the Thomas Sanders YouTube channel.

Search: YouTube Sanders Sides

...to take of take care and listen to myself Article by Joshua Tomes 7

#iDare cover story

page 6

Interview with a local broadcaster On Friday 18th September #iDare team member Tyler got the chance to interview Swindon 105.5 FM station manager and radio broadcaster Shirley Ludford.

Shirley confessed that it has been nearly forty years since she got into broadcasting and she hadn’t set out to be a broadcaster.

After teaching English in Corsica (which is in place in France) she went into Swindon Viewpoint as a guest to watch a programme with her mother and thought it looked interesting. She was invited back the next day to find out more about it and ended up sitting behind a television camera interviewing a local band. Shirley then took up an opportunity to become Swindon Viewpoint’s secretary and during that time she said that a lady from Swindon demanded to know why we didn’t broadcast local radio programmes in between the television programmes. Back in those days there was no local radio station and TV wasn’t on 24 hours a day like it is now.

This gave Shirley the challenge to broadcast a one-off sound only programme and a local newspaper published a picture of Shirley presenting the show titled Mums the Word. A radio station boss heard the programme and gave Shirley a job to produce a programme which broadcasted on a Sunday and before too long she had a little team working with her. After some time, the radio station closed but the first commercial station was coming to Wiltshire and gave her a job which properly got her into radio.

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The radio station was tested in a local pub and it got a great response, So, when the opportunity came to apply for the licence for Swindon, they were successful and launched at Swindon Town Football Club. They broadcasted there for two years and then moved to the Bentley Centre in Stratton Road for six years. When the building was going to be changed into flats. the team had to leave there and had five months to find a new premise. they ended up in Liden and have been there for nearly four years.

After Shirley left BBC Wiltshire in 2006, she decided to look for other challenges as she had done her bit in radio and never thought she would be back in the broadcasting realm but then she had a call from other people who wanted to start a community radio station for Swindon and they wanted help from Shirley.

Tyler at the studio desk

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After she worked for Swindon Viewpoint, she joined Wiltshire Radio (which later became GWR and Heart FM) and she worked with them for eight and a half years and was the very first employee for Wiltshire Radio. Shirley went on to record the newspaper for the blind which is still going strong today and she had a call from the BBC, who had come to Wiltshire and said they would like Shirley to work with them. As commercial radio had begun changing and becoming music based and less local, the job offer with BBC Wiltshire was an ideal opportunity for Shirley, so she worked with them for 13 years.

"we’re showing people how to get their voice heard and how they can get involved in radio" “In all that time we developed the size and the capacity and people we work with. We had an MBE for our services just four years ago and Swindon 105.5 had a visit from His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent who presented our Queens Award which is the MBE for community organisations. It was an exciting time for the radio station for the community to know all about the hard work we do” Shirley said.

Swindon 105.5 have about a 100 to 120 volunteers involved which, include teams such as young children who present a radio programme on a Saturday morning, as well the technical team admin at reception, the Board or Trustees and the presenters and editors. There is quite a big team who help keep the station running and up to speed.

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This is the MBE award that was awarded to Swindon 105.5

I asked Shirley about how Swindon 105.5 changed the community: “It’s the service that Swindon 105.5 provide, and it enables people to promote themselves or their business and we’re showing people how to get their voice heard and how they can get involved in radio”. Shirley said the best bit about being a Radio Station Broadcaster is the creative side of how she can find a subject and work with it to help people get the message out there within the community. The advice Shirley gave for anyone that wants to get into the business is to not go for the top but to get work experience and climb your way up.

To get involved in working or volunteering with Swindon 105.5 FM please have a look on their website www.Swindon1055.co.uk

...To ask questions Article written by Tyler Ody aged 20 11

As we go into lockdown again – please stay safe

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How Much Could You Write in a Month?

Article by Riley Mathers

The latter half of the year always ends up being a busy time for me.

September, or Sketchtember, starts the beginning of a creative challenge of just trying to sketch daily. October brings the challenge of Inktober, a fully finished piece a day. Although a good cheat is to use your Sketchtember art as a base! Then November brings in what I think is the hardest challenge; NaNoWriMo: A challenge to write 50,000 words in one month.

NaNoWriMo, or National November Writing Month, is a non-profit organisation, well prepared with a structure, community and any encouragement for anyone would wants to tackle their mammoth task; Write a 50k novel in 30 days. It’s a worldwide challenge to write 1,667 words each day, all mounting up to the 50,000 word goal 50,000 words in a month may seem like quite a lot but it’s an achievable amount and definitely counts as a novel – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ is just over 47,000. The organisation's definition of novel is ‘a lengthy piece of fiction,’ which gives the author the freedom to write about whatever takes their fancy.

While this is their bigger challenge, they do run a smaller initiative, called CampNaNo, during April and July. It’s a lot more relaxed with each author setting their own goals and they’re encouraged to write anything they want from dissertations to short stories to musicals to even just a structure of a novel.

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Both challenges are open to anyone 13 and up but they do have a Young Writers Program that is specifically open to authors 17 and under. The Young Writers Program gives younger authors the chance to create their own word goal so they don’t necessarily have to write 50,000 but they can edit the goal any time they want.

The NaNoWriMo community forms a wonderful support network and it’s easy to find your home region which means you can band together with those in your area to compete against other communities to reach the highest overall word count.

Your home region also connects you to the forums where you can introduce yourself and meet the other participants, including the Municipal Liaison, ML, who’s a volunteer who organizes the in person events.

Due to Covid-19, there sadly won’t be any in-person meets so some regions have added other means of being in contact.

The Swindon Borough community has added both a Discord Chat and a Facebook Group as a way to share ideas. Discord, an instant messaging app with both voice and video call software, should help writers feel like they are experiencing a close approximation to the in-person meets from the comfort of their own home.

As I am a part of the Swindon Borough, I can attest to their support. While it may seem a bit daunting at first, the group are a welcoming bunch. When they meet in person, they do their best to sit next to those with a similar goal at the session. Those who want to use the meet ups as a bit of a social environment cluster together, while those who want to write as much as they can sit together, often with headphones on.

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The in-person meets were often held in the Central Swindon Library and although participants could pop to the Library’s cafe for a snack and a tea or coffee, authors would bring in baked goods to share, usually cookies and brownies.

As there is a range of ages, it’s a well-balanced group, with even the most dedicated writers taking their headphones off to hear about other novels being written and offering up advice if needed. Even if you’re not sure on what you want to write, the environment is great. Sometimes just listening to other participants can spark an idea that can lead to you hitting your target goal.

The website is very helpful in itself with little badges that are automatically marked off when you reach the set goal.

The first set of badges are Writing Badges awarded for things like updating your word count, writing for consecutive days and meeting word goals. The first word goal badge is the daily word count so it’s definitely achievable at 1667 words.

The badges for consecutive days range from just 2 days to 14 days, up to 30 days, giving you a bit of self satisfaction if you’ve managed to achieve writing for the full 30 days.

The second set are Personal Achievement Badges. They’re ones that the writers can claim for themselves and they’re often not fully marked off.

The first set are more to work out what kind of writer you are.

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If you mark the “Planner” badge, you start on November 1st with an outline or notes

A “Pantser” will start with a completely blank document and their own spontaneous ideas on the day.

There is a variety of other badges like; taking care of yourself, if you’ve backed up your document or encouraged a fellow writer. It may seem like such a small thing but it really can motivate you to continue.

And the “Plantser” badge is for when you have a loose structure of what you want to write but are letting yourself improvise.

The organisation is set out to inspire and encourage with participants receiving messages from NaNoWriMo HQ and Pep Talks from famous authors, which are now archived so they can be looked at to provide help, by inspiring, giving advice, or reminding the writers that it’s good to have a little break so they don’t burn out.

Here are some thoughts from our current ML, Sophie Maria Boyce, and an ex-ML, Kat Armstrong.

"The first time someone hits that 50k target for NaNoWriMo is a powerful moment that helps them to realise they can. They can write. They can finish. They can. Much more than that, it helps writers – typically solitary creatures – to find and build great friendships based on this wonderful mutual interest."

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Sophie Maria Boyce

"As a NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison I think the best part about NaNo for me is the community it helps us build.

Writers come back year after year and it's like having a group of friends that never stops growing. We support each other to create a space where all writing is allowed and that's a really great experience."

Kat Armstrong

Each year our Municipal Liaisons try to do something to bring joy to the crowd that shows up to the in-person meetings. One of my first years, I received a crochet bunny, aptly named a ‘Plot Bunny’, with a tag saying ‘Trickster’, a challenge for me to include one in my writing, along with an envelope containing an inspiring quote, a phrase to put into my novel and a hexaflexagon with various fantasy creatures on it. (Hexaflexagons are six sided flat models, usually constructed by folding strips of paper that can be folded in certain ways to reveal faces besides the two that were originally on the front and back.)

It’s completely free to take part in NaNoWrMo, just sign up via their website: https://nanowrimo.org/

... to write my story Images courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

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DAN'S FILM FACTS

2001: A Space Odyssey 2001: A Space Odyssey was directed by Stanley Kubrick (who also directed A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket) and released in 1968. It follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient (very intelligent) computer HAL after the discovering an alien monolith affecting human evolution. The movie deals with themes of existentialism (meaning of life), human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. Over the years, critics have praised its effects, music, direction and philosophical ideas, with director Martin Scorsese calling it one of his favourite films of all time.

The idea for the film came from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, who would write the novel of the film.

The original soundtrack was to be composed by Alex North, but it was scrapped as Stanley Kubrick thought classical music would fit better.

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke worked the film and the book at the same time as each other.

There was going to be an introductory scene for the film.

The apes at the beginning of the film were played by human actors as computer generation hadn’t been invented at the time.

The director, Stanley Kubrick, destroyed most of models for the spacecrafts fearing that other directors might borrow them for their own films.

The main characters were originally supposed to travel to Saturn, but Stanley Kubrick thought the special effects team couldn’t properly depict Saturn’s rings, so it was changed to Jupiter.

The actor Keir Dullea, who plays Dave Bowman, is actually terrible at electronics even though his character is a skilled technician.

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The film nearly depicted an internet-like system in the ship’s computers.

The first frames of the film were shot in an abandoned bra factory in New York.

The lead actor, Keir Dullea, was hired without an audition.

Stanley Kubrick wanted the film to be as scientifically accurate as possible, so he consulted NASA scientists to help.

At the film’s release, it received poor reviews as it left viewers confused and baffled.

The total footage shot was some 200 times the final length of the film.

A working title was “Voyage Beyond the Stars” but when the film Fantastic Voyage came out, Kubrick hated it so much that he changed the title to not sound anything like it.

Originally, Hal, the ship’s computer, was going to be called Athena and have a female voice.

While the film bombed at first, it gained further popularity when young adults booked to see it just to take psychedelic drugs during the “Star Gate” sequence.

Stanley Kubrick provided his own breathing for the sound of the astronaut suits.

The film was shot and edited almost entirely in England as there were sound stages larger than those in the US. Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and David Lean were suggested to direct in case Kubrick was unwilling or unable to.

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page 6

Funny inky octopunk by chloe butler Octopunk is a creative multimedia company that produces indie films for a wide range of genres. t is run by Michelle Iannantuono who is a full time film-maker based in Charleston South Carolina. She loved to make films from an early age and she also has ADHD. They have got 35.4k subscribers on YouTube and the banter in the videos is very funny. The humour in the videos and the fan comments section is another reason that I like them Octopunk has made 9 films and some of the films are fan films (a “fan film� is made by a fan of a programs, artist or genre), and these are my favourites: Detroit: Become Human is a game made

by Quantic Dream. The fan films that Octopunk made are based on the characters in the game. The LED on their right temple that go between blue, yellow and red. Blue for normal, yellow for thinking and doing tasks, red is for stressful situation.

Detroit Awakening is a good short film that it is 17 minutes long an its the first fan film that they had made. The visual effects are a bit askew on the LED but other than that I find the film enjoyable. They went on to make a sequel called Detroit Evolution.

...to punk out 20

Detroit Evolution is the sequel to Detroit Awakening and it is great film that is fan made. The film is 75 minutes long and it is the second fan film that Octopunk made. The summary of the movie is that an android is killed and the two main leads of the film solve the mystery. The visual effects are very good, I love this movie.

My favourite non Octopunk fan film is Seven Deadly Synths is about magic synthesizers called the Seven Deadly Synths. The film is 13 minutes long, and the CGI are amazing. This will probably be a feature film in the future which I really hope happens. This film is fantastic in the writing and the acting.

You can watch the behind the scenes videos a week early on Patreon. There are 5 subscription tiers starting from ÂŁ1. If you are interested in finding more about them: YouTube: Octopunk media Facebook: Octopunk media Instagram: Octopunk Twitter: @ladytuono Patreon: Octopunk Twitch: Octopunk media

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page 6

Inside #iDare Magazine Zach iDare Magazine is a youth issues magazine written by young people for young people. It provides young people with a safe space and a place to express their interests and learn new skills on the job in order to build confidence, build up CVs and increase chances of getting a job and future career in their fields of interests. Our youth team meets every Saturday to create a wide range of content including articles, blogs, podcasts, photographs and videos ready for our monthly magazine editions.

Our team also manage the social media and marketing of the magazine, design the website and conduct interviews with other professionals and members of the public. Our magazine has recently undergone a relaunch as a step toward working more professionally and growing the magazine’s readership while still producing our best work possible. We have now created a plan for each week, so we are ready to publish our work at the end of the month.

Kate We publish iDare Magazine monthly. Each month starts with team members deciding what subject to write about and how many pages they will need so that magazine can be planned.

Team members research and plan their articles – there's a checklist and time-line plan to make it easier to work out what they need to do to meet the deadline (the last Saturday of the month). I, and others, are on hand to help structure the articles and plan the page design, and to proofread each article – everyone makes errors like typos and spelling mistakes and it's good practice for someone else to read through your work.

You not only work as a journalist but as a designer too. Team members have to source images for each article – find or take photos or draw illustrations or decide that images aren't needed.

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Zach

Why I joined iDare

I joined iDare in May 2019 because I’m very interested in business and I saw this as a valuable opportunity to get some experience working for a real organisation and learning new skills. I also wanted to push myself into new social situations where I could try to come out of my shell and build up more confidence.

I’m learning many new skills for iDare and have done work that I am very proud of.

I have been able to express my opinions and interests when writing articles, I have been able to experience the business side of the magazine such as finance, marketing, hiring, and have gained a real insight on how a business works.

I have also managed the social media account of iDare and helped create an advertising campaign on social media. iDare has led to me being able to other work with the platform project such as the youth digital media marketing agency where I worked in teams with people and held meetings with small business owners. This really helped me to build up confidence in a real working environment. Working for iDare has allowed me to build my CV and has given me much more confidence with applying for jobs and made me more hopeful that I will be able to get a good job when I’m older. Along with valuable experience, iDare has also helped educate me and make me aware of the different kinds of things different young people have to go through in life, and how things that some people don’t even worry about have a massive effect on someone else’s life.

...to contribute 23

CREATIVE CAREER SUPPORT THROUGH THE PLATFORM PROJECT

#iDare Magazine is part of the Platform Project which runs a number of different projects to help young people learn how to make money from doing the things they love. Our Creative Careers Project gives young people with amazing creative talent the opportunity to turn those skills into a freelance income! Here are two of our participants' stories: Emma loves making little felted animals and when we saw what she could make we helped her to set up a FaceBook business page to sell them; decide on how much to charge; bought her some new equipment so that she can make more, and helped her create some social media marketing buzz to reach her market.

Within 24 hours of first posting her creations Emma received her first paid commission, and is now working super fast to keep up with the demand!

Jake hadn't found a career route that really worked for him. He's a really talented Anime and cartoon artist. We're working with him to help turn his talents into commissioned pieces of art that he can sell, and start to earn a living from what he loves. He created this cartoon sketch, and even turned our founder Sadie into a cartoon character!

...to create!

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"I WAS CREATED TO CREATE" If this sounds like you, or someone you know, why not get involved in our Creative Careers Project!

Contact us to find out more about our youth enterprise project:

info@PlatformProject.co.uk.

GET SUPPORT TO START ALONG YOUR CREATIVE CAREER PATH

Hey Digital Superstar: Want to write for us?!?

The #iDare team is growing, and seeking superstars who would like to write for our magazine on-site or from afar!

hello@idare.blog

We can support you to hone your writing skills.

If you have a story or are passionate about something you want to share with the world, get in touch! iDare Magazine can help to build your CV by working in a real, live, trading youth-led business.

...to get involved