79. Jets Podcast Crew

They were looking for a place to share what they had to say, and they found one – their very own podcast series.

Meet Jamie, James, Holly, Lachlan and Matthew, five Jets participants who formed the Jets Podcast Crew.

Through common interests in media, radio, and music, the Podcast Crew began thinking of ideas, and sourcing content, that was relevant to young people.

The first podcasts they put together after forming in April 2017, were recordings of podcast members reading out Banyule100 articles.

“It feels weird that we started our podcasts by reading out Banyule100 articles, and now we’re being profiled on Banyule100,” James said.

They then began brainstorming topics that they thought would be interesting and educational to young people.

“We found that a lot of people didn’t know a lot about sexual health, we think it’s something that’s not fully covered in schools, particularly information that’s relevant to LGBTQI people,” Holly said.

“So we did a workshop with people that come to Jets, and asked them questions about what they thought was missing in sex education at school.”

They said following these discussions, they went out and did their own research, to try and help bridge these gaps.

“We then put a podcast together that answered some of these questions, it was in depth, but only seven minutes, so not too long that it got to the point where it was boring,” James said.

“We got a really good response from the LGBTQI community, they said they felt like they were being catered for and listened to.”

Since then, they have put together smaller, less time intensive podcasts, to increase content available on their SoundCloud account.

“We also tried to get other programs involved, including the African Women’s Action Group (AWAG), where the girls came in and answered some frequently asked questions,” Holly said.

“It’s important to hear from people in certain communities that won’t necessarily get heard otherwise.

“There’s not necessarily another platform out there where you’ll hear from a group of 16-18 year-old Somali girls, it’s a very specific thing.”

Another one of their podcasts is VibeCast, which is a news podcast with a spin on regular news.

“We were sick of seeing so many negative things in the news, so we did a bit of a reversal on that, just talking about positive stories,” Holly said.

“It might be stories about someone getting out of hospital, or 10 puppies that were born recently, whatever we think might make people happy.”

They said they aim to get one of these podcasts done every few weeks, but it can be difficult putting content together.

“If we run out of content, we’ll go and have discussions, or research what’s going on,” Jamie said.

They said they would love to get more people involved to broaden the topics discussed. The group are on a break for the moment but are planning to get together at the end of 2018 to produce more podcasts.

“We’ve been talking about doing a youth pride one, because when you hear the phrase ‘gang of youths’, you instantly think of negative things because of how young people are portrayed in the media, but we want to counteract that by celebrating young people’s achievements, and drawing attention to all the positive things young people are doing,” Holly said.

“We know plenty of people who are doing really cool things, and we think it will be a multi-episode podcast series, where we’ll pick a person per episode and talk about what they’ve done and how they’ve got to where they are.”

They would also like to do a podcast that draws attention to local musicians.

“We’d like to do some reviews of local artists, ones that people might not know existed, so we get their music heard,” James said.

They also sung the praises of Banyule Youth Services youth worker Kate James, who is one of their biggest inspirations.

“Kate’s the person who’s made it all happen, she’s here every week, she’s a really good motivator,” Holly said.

“She starts a lot of the discussions and helps us come up with some really good ideas.”

Having only met through Jets last year, they said they have all become really good friends.

“Now that we’ve met through Jets, we’ve all become friends outside of Jets, which is pretty cool,” James said.

“We’re really excited about what’s to come.”

Words: Joely Mitchell

Picture: Sean Porter