Tartu Noorteaken (Youth Window) launched its own weekly broadcast on a local radio channel in 2019. The host of each epsisode is a young person active in the local community. Each week they discuss a topic important to young people with guests ranging from youth workers to other young people. When lockdown came in March 2020, no new broadcasts could be recorded at the local radio station. This gave rise to the idea of creating a podcast at the Youth Work Center that would provide young people with experience both making and participating in a podcast dedicated to their interests. Covid19 restrictions at the time meant it was possible to record the podcast at the centre. 

At that time it was possible to apply for support from an Estonian project foundation Varaait. As it was the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the programme aligned with one of the aims of the project round – conducting remote youth work. In addition to providing experience, the project aimed to communicate youth information more effectively and to give young people a voice.  A little over 2 000 euros was received from the foundation, which were used to buy three microphones, microphone stands, a camera, a sound recorder and the necessary cables. 

At the time of writing, 33 podcast episodes have been recorded, along with various specials, including an episode on sign language. The young hosts are dynamic and bold, and the show covers a range of issues currently facing young people. The first host, Grete, then 16, says the experience gave her confidence, lots of contacts, and an opportunity to practice engaging with different people, including some who were not easy to reach out to. She also learned how to be polite, yet honest at the same time and learned how to cope with stressful situations. Today, 3 years on, Grete has hosted several youth podcasts, lead many initiatives and has given talks at and lead several big conferences. 

The most popular topics among the YouTube audiences have been motivation, self-development, time management, and a discussion “is voluntary work for anyone?” Similarly, one of the most popular specials was an episode featuring youth worker Jaan-Raul who communicates in sign language. The podcast has had guests from different fields, including development coaches, influencers, writers, young people active in different spheres, and students of different disciplines. 

The first 19 episodes were produced with an accompanying video, until we recognised that this labour-intensive process was more effort than it was worth. Synchronizing video and sound is challenging, and people prefer to listen to podcasts on the go and tend not to watch the video. We record our podcasts in the Garage band environment and process them in the same environment, iMovies or in DaVinci. The podcast airs via the Anchor.fm platform and listeners can tune into the Noorteaken Podcast in five different environments: YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple podcasts and Castbox. The first two are the most popular channels among our young listeners. 

A contest was recently held with the aim of further developing the podcast. Young people ran for different tasks such as compiling a script, anchoring a broadcast, and montage. That contest saw many new team members join us at the Noorteaken podcast. When we asked Kerttu, 15, why she got involved, she said that her major motivation was to become a better performer and communicator, and to gain experience hosting a broadcast. Kerttu had just hosted her first podcast and her immediate reaction was: “It went better than I expected, and I want to do this again.” Kerttu’s emotion demonstrates very clearly why the podcast is important for young people. It builds their self-assurance and offers an experience of achievement which will help them later in life. 

Tartu Youth Work Center development manager, Helene, is largely responsible for directing the Noorteaken Podcast. When asked how Tartu Noorteaken was doing, she answered: “I feel that this has breathed new life into Noorteaken – we now have several new anchors, all of them very different. Their choice of themes, drawn from their own interests, is really varied. This is a good opportunity to practise public performance and how to prepare and conduct interviews, while improving confidence and self-assurance for the future. The Noorteaken is also created by young people for young people.  The themes have been chosed by young people and this ensures they are topical and engaging.” 

See also: 

YouTube
Tartu Youth Work Center´s website

Author Margit Kink is the Manager of the Tartu Youth Work Center.