Stevens, who self-identifies as neurodiverse, had some early success, having secured work experience with the video mapping company Butch Auntie. That placement saw him begin realising the transition from student to professional. However, it was when he found Mama Youth training, which aims to help underrepresented groups get a start in TV, that “it all really started to take off.” Seeing the opportunity to train with Sky and the BBC, his initial reaction was that it, “sounded way too good to be true, maybe it’s a scam?”
Mei Leng Yew explains how audiences are demanding more diverse voices
“I didn’t really know that you could have a creative career until I saw posts online from training schemes like the MAMA Youth Project.” However, once that realisation dawned, the genie wasn’t going back in the bottle. An initial position as a trainee editor on the scheme for diverse young people led to six week’s work experience at Sky, and then on to a year and a half on the job out at Isleworth in West London
Ed Tischler, Managing Director of Gravity Media in EMEA commented: “We’ve been consistently impressed with the work of the MAMA Youth Project team. We look forward to learning from their experience as advocates and allies for greater equality and inclusion in the broadcast media industry. From what we’ve seen so far, we’re also convinced that the project’s alumni will make excellent employees and ambassadors for the growing Gravity Media brand.”
"...This collaboration further supports MAMA Youth's mission to get young people from under-represented and challenging backgrounds into meaningful employment within the media and highlights how proactive Channel 4 is in this respect, we value our partnership with a business who prioritise such insightful investments into the industry and are committed to opening doors for our young people."
BAFTA Nominee - Licklemor Productions
Licklemor utilises our young talent, who are enthusiastic, creative and relevant to the content we produce. Our USP is that our productions allow our alumni to have major editorial input in our programmes, whilst working with other seasoned television professionals from beyond the MAMA Youth family. Experienced alumni are often given the opportunity to take the next step in their career, such a researcher achieving their first assistant producer credit.
Episode 11 of the Podcast features Bob Clarke, founder and chief executive of Mama Youth Project which trains young people from under-represented groups in the media and equips them with the skills and experience to work in production.
Netflix: £350k for next-gen diverse UK talent
The cash, announced by Netflix VP of UK original series, Anne Mensah, will support 30 full, year-long scholarships for students from Identity School of Acting; double the number of young people Million Youth Media work with across the UK and will help Mama Youth expand its work and train more young people so they are better prepared for broadcast and media jobs.
Passion has also hired Chris Williams, a recent graduate of the Mama Youth project, a programme aimed at tackling the misrepresentation of people from under-represented groups in the media.
MAMA Youth Project relaunches Hardship Fund for alumni struggling through lockdown
MAMA Youth Project has announced the relaunch of its Hardship Fund for trainees who have been struggling financially during their courses with the charity and alumni facing post-training unemployment during the pandemic. Last year MAMA Youth Project’s emergency Just Giving campaign raised over £9000 and provided a lifeline to 11 trainees and alumni, enabling them to cope. The money donated ensured that those most vulnerable could pay for rent, food, transport and other necessities during difficult times.
While Bath Spa’s program is specifically for their students, the MAMA Youth Project has a further reach. Although I’ve only just joined them, and I haven’t mentored anyone yet, it is clearly a valuable scheme — helping more disadvantaged youth get into media production. Film is a difficult industry to get into at the best of times, but can seem entirely impossible for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
MAMA Youth Project, enabling opportunity in the creative and media industry
Diversity in the creative and media industry is improving, let’s face it… It needed to improve! And MAMA Youth Project have been at the forefront of this change for over 10 years.To help you identify the proactive measures you can take as a business, and the benefits you can gain from actively improving the diversity in your organisation Kayte Burns from MAMA Youth & Zoe Morris who has recently benefited from the project discuss their objectives and personal experiences
The RTS Careers Fair is back and we are taking it online! The Virtual Careers Fair will be bigger and better so don’t miss your chance to be a part of this HUGE event. This year we are teaming up with our centres from across the UK to have exhibitors all over UK and Ireland.
The SVG Podcast: Widening the Field — Achieving Greater Diversity in Sports Production
We have a special roundtable conversation for you to address this issue on the show today. We’re joined by Bob Clarke, founder/chief executive, MAMA Youth Project; Inga Ruehl, director, Sky Production Services; and Ekta Hutton, acting head, HBS Broadcast Academy, to share practical steps that broadcasters can take to promote equal opportunities, diversity, and inclusion in their workplaces.
MAMA Youth Project founder and chief executive, Bob Clarke, Sky Production Services’ director, Inga Ruehl, and HBS’ Broadcast Academy acting head, Ekta Hutton, will tell the audience how they see different aspects of diversity within sports broadcast.
A helping hand into the industry
The media industry is extremely close-knit, excluding ethnic minorities and the working class. Without schemes such as Mama Youth Project, these groups will not have the contacts needed to break into the industry.Before I joined the course, I was ashamed of my working-class culture. I would attempt to pass myself off as middle-class when applying for media schemes to try to forge acceptance.However, this training has taught me to be proud of my background – the Mama Youth Project has accepted me for who I am.
Big Givers: Interview with Primary Shakespeare, Redthread and MAMA Youth Project
From her home in Poland, Joanna Barcik, now a sound operator at Sky, had moved to the UK to go to university to study Music Technology. After completing a Masters degree, she struggled to find work. However, everything changed after she came across the MAMA Youth Project.
MAMA Youth Project’s Season 17 trainees graduated in style at a special event in Sky Central’s North West Corner on Wednesday 11 December 2019. Hosted by former What’s Up TV presenter and producer, Jacqueline Shepherd, the graduation was attended by actors Ashley Walters and Noel Clarke who talked about unconscious bias in the broadcast industry and the need to work harder than anyone else when starting out.
I had the amazing opportunity to edit two football promos that aired on TV. I’ll never forget that feeling of seeing my promo on live TV while I was sitting in the gallery. I was proud to be a part of this because I was allowed to be as creative as I wanted by experimenting with different effects within After Effects.
Princess Royal Training Awards 2018
Congratulations to the 48 UK businesses who have achieved the Princess Royal Training Awards standard in 2018! The successful organisations range from multi-nationals and SMEs, through to charities, the public sector and small employers. What each organisation has in common is its commitment to investing in its people.
Most people working in the broadcast industry are white, middle or upper class, university educated, and sometimes well connected through friends or family already in the sector. Times are changing, however, and one person who has dedicated himself to making that happen is Bob Clarke, founder and chief executive at the MAMA Youth Project.
Pilotlight: MAMA Youth Project
With the team of experienced Pilotlighters (who between them boasted substantial expertise in strategy, business planning, change management, finance, marketing, and sales), MYP explored alternative sources of income, and re-evaluated their organisational structure and growth planning. Bob commented: “Their expertise was invaluable and really helped the MAMA Youth executives focus on leadership and management.”
UK Music Video Awards 2017: the winners' backstage interviews
There is a one minute highlights video of the UK Music Video Awards ceremony itself on the UKMVAs YouTube channel. The films were produced, filmed and edited by the What's Up TV team at the Mama Youth project, who were working with the UKMVAs at The Roundhouse for the third year running, in their 10th anniversary year.
The October 11 awards ceremony was hosted by ITV News presenter Charlene White, and attended by more than 500 business leaders. The awards celebrate outstanding practice, innovation and dedication to race equality and inclusion in UK workplaces.
Training Insight - MAMA Youth Project
"I completed the MAMA Youth Project training back in 2005 and shortly after I completed my degree in Set Design. I then started working in entry level positions in Art Departments for Theatre productions, period dramas and commercials. Following my dream I worked on many music videos assisting and finally after years I got the opportunity to art direct videos that appeared on MTV."
Diversity – or the lack of it – has become the big talking point in TV. Amid all the debate, one organisation, MAMA Youth Project, has been actively doing something about it – for the past ten years. Set up as a charity in 2007, MAMA Youth takes a hands-on approach to boosting the numbers of disadvantaged people in television – not only people of colour, but all disadvantaged groups, black or white.
PROCAM SUPPORTS MAMA YOUTH PROJECT WITH KIT DONATION
Procam’s investment has provided the charity with HD cameras, lighting and sound equipment. This means that filming of the organisation’s TV show, created by the young people themselves, will be captured in high definition for the first time. The donation comes just as the show moves from Pick TV to Sky 1 in June this year and will allow the organisation to scale up it’s production with multiple cameras. The technology is key to providing under-privileged young people with a practical understanding of industry standard equipment and will give them a better chance of gaining employment in a competitive industry.
UK broadcast hire company Procam has donated £100,000 of HD equipment to the MAMA Youth Project to give disadvantaged young people hands-on experience of a range of broadcast technology and further their route to employment in the industry. Procam’s investment has provided the charity with HD cameras, lighting and sound equipment. This means that filming of the organisation’s TV show, created by the young people themselves, will be captured in high definition for the first time.
Careers Workshop – MAMA Youth Project
Earlier this week our Account Manager, Laura Davis, and Marketing Executive, Elle Finn, co-presented a career development workshop with TV and media industry expert Terry Smith at MAMA Youth Project in East London – and they loved it.
Mama Youth founder spotlights TV’s diversity problem