Community Voices Screening at Channel 4

Community Voices Screening at Channel 4

On the 3rd of March with in a small and hidden cinema within the bowels of channel 4 lay a glimmer of hope for the lucky and deserving charities that had managed to secure Community Voices funding by the social media charity Media Trust. Club Soda was among the many groups offered the chance to watch the Community Voices film live on the silver screen. Although the seven groups featured differ greatly in terms of the communities they serve, it was obvious they all had shared feeling of isolation, from their own communities whether intentional or not. Which has been channeled creatively by Media Trust funding into various media projects.

At the beginning of the film screening the groups had mainly known their own interpretation of community inclusion whether it was disability, religious, gender and age related or so forth. Yet by the end the film screening all the groups shared a collective glimmer of hope. . Now that the funding from the community voices program is coming to an end its now up to the individual charities and organizations to turn their glimmer of hope into a sustainable path towards a brighter future. (Caroline Dodd)

Under the Community Voices project, communities around England have been making a positive difference to their lives by using creative digital media. The project was launched by Media Trust, which supported them with start up funding, volunteer mentors and training.

The stories of how digital media changed seven of these communities are told in a 50-minute documentary, Community Voices, which you can watch online on Community Channel.

These seven communities include an internet radio station for the over 50s in Merseyside, a group of homeless people in Bradford, an Interfaith community in East London, people with learning difficulties in Croydon, careers in the New Forest, a self-help group of refugees in Oxford, and a group of teenagers trying to improve their rundown estate in Ipswich

(www.mediatrust.org/community-voices/).