A message from our Chair, Bharti Patel

Welcome to the 2024 Global Girl Media UK Newsletter. I am honoured and delighted to have been given this opportunity to work with a diverse and talented team of trustees to support and help develop GGM UK's strategy, policies and plans. 

First, I would like to thank Victoria Bridges, co-founder and CEO, for her dedication to supporting young girls and non-binary people from diverse backgrounds aspiring to break into an often-white male-dominated media industry. My thanks to the co-founder and trustee, Sue Carpenter, who stepped down from her role after the successful film festival in 2023. Sue has made an enormous contribution, and we are grateful for her insight and counsel.

Breaking into the industry takes work. Recognising talent and potential and providing the proper training to build skills and confidence is necessary. Stories told from diverse voices have the power to change people's lives. 

GGM UK's board is diverse in age, experience, and leadership, coming from the media industry, civil society, the legal sector and graduates from our Summer Academy. The board, our CEO and volunteers have high aspirations. We are dedicated to securing the best possible outcome for every girl and young woman in our Summer Academy, to excel in telling stories from a diverse perspective - writing, reporting, broadcasting, podcasting and documentary filmmaking, leading to a career media in all its forms.

More than 100 young people have been trained in digital media skills. Many of our graduates have gone on to hold key roles in the industry - from Aisha Clarke, a freelance Producer in factual TV, to Dani Desouza, a senior social media journalist at the Press Association, and Lauren McGaun, a freelance editor at BBC News and Newsnight.

The GGM UK Film Festival allows young female filmmakers worldwide to showcase their short films and have them critiqued and judged for awards by a panel of leading media experts. The GGM UK Film Festival 2023 received nearly 200 films from young women in countries as far away as Iran, Nepal, Ukraine, and Puerto Rico. Fifty films were shown offline and online, reaching over 500 viewers. 

As the Chair with over twenty years of experience leading small and highly influential charities for the human rights of children, young people and vulnerable communities, I know charities' challenges. The balance of ensuring that there is sufficient funding to support our programmes and initiatives is an ongoing daily struggle. We must have long-term funding and regular donations to be more confident about our decisions and services. 

I'm proud to say that despite the challenging circumstances of needing more financial resources to provide our services and opportunities to the often-unheard communities, we have remained operational. We know we can do more to provide ongoing support and mentorship to the young girls. The generosity of our partners, collaborators, and sponsors has helped us meet our running costs - offering free digital media training and ongoing support, venue hire, technical equipment, food, and drinks. 

I invite you to explore potential ways to collaborate, build partnerships, and join young women's journey into digital media. With your expertise and support, we can make a difference in the lives of young girls and the media representation of diversity in storytelling. Feel free to contact me at patelbhartiis@gmail.com or the CEO, Victoria Bridges, at tor@globalgirlmedia.org. We would be happy to give you more information about how you can help.

Support Us:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-ggm-uk-2024-mentorship-programme/backers#start

Author: Bharti Patel, She/her

This Immigrant is here to change the game

A unique story gives you a unique voice to use.

There are enough people that are silenced. So I chose to be loud for the ones that don't have the privilege.

That is what all my work is about as a writer and aspiring journalist.

Let's take it from the beginning.

Hi, I am Aysun. Nice to meet you.

I am a 23-year-old daughter of Turkish immigrants. My parents moved to Germany to grant us a better future. Only through their sacrifices have I been able to study journalism abroad in Scotland.

I have a deep passion for travelling and discovering new cultures. Through open and empathic discussions, it is possible to find solutions for our society's complex and layered problems.

As a queer woman of colour I have experienced discrimination. I have seen it. I have heard of it. My life has been flooded with stories of other minorities being treated differently. What do you do when you witness this much pain and inequality?

You either continue with your life, or you decide to get loud.

For me, the choice was obvious.

Why complain when you can change the game, huh?

Hopes and ambitions are one thing.

However, how does reality look compared with the heroic fantasy of being a writer? How does the everyday life of a student journalist with a diverse background really look?

Well, I have written more applications than I can count, networked with more people than I can remember, and hit up more journalists on Twitter than some might find reasonable.

But then again: Who cares?

You stop bothering about what other people might think when you have something more significant to fight for. The possibility of not achieving your goal is much more frightening than public embarrassment.

On the flip side, this journey has also brought me three work placements, a summer academy place at GlobalGirl Media UK, and different travel opportunities. And this is only the beginning.

I am proud of where I come from, who I am, and where I am going.

Let's see where my path leads me next.

Author: Aysun Bora

All About Henry

Emerging into any industry as a young, working-class, transgender boy in 2023 is effortsome, and I understand these esoteric troubles from a fundamental level.

This is who I am.

My name is Henry; he/they.

I am a queer boy born in Croydon, currently seventeen, young and sweet, and studying English, Film Studies, and Sociology at A-Level. I aim to pursue English with Film at university in 2024, progressing into an optimistically prodigal career in writing of any and all forms. The interweaving of my female upbringing, my pivot into masculinity, and the experiences between them have vastly bolstered my ethics and provided emotional backing for my values; my values being of equity among all, intersectional understanding, and the pursuit of kindness. I am also partial to a bit of drawing.

I aspire to honour this moral code especially through my writing, as I aim to share my own story of gender and class hardships, as well as broadcasting the stories of other people.

Other people are very important to me.

I am constantly surrounded by a wildly diverse plethora of cultures and characters, and I firmly believe that the world needs to know about it. All of it.

This is why, with be it poetry or journalism or simply artistic expression, I am fully geared toward making our society a more aware and understanding place.

I first heard about the GGM summer academy from my Film Studies teacher, and was urged by family and friends to apply. Once I had done some research into the charity's work, I was absolutely ecstatic to join. I'm excited to see what the course has in store for me and my interests, as well as deepening my understanding and passion for the investigation and exposure of gendered representation in the media.

I currently work as a face painter in a theme park, using any and all time between endless glitter tattoos and hair wraps to jot down new ideas and to draw characters and people on the backs of receipts; most of my fiction-based writing surrounds characters I have created and their intricate and colourful backstories, majorly for video games such as Skyrim or Fallout; whilst I'd love to say that I paint children's faces so I can save for university, we both know that I'm just counting my coins so that I can buy Fantastic Mr. Fox-themed memorabilia and impossibly more orange-coloured clothes and objects and teddies and pens and…

I like video games a lot. I think that looking into the representation in video games especially is very important; this is as well as films targeted toward children as, whilst they are currently just tiny sponges of ideology, they will eventually age into the adults that make our laws and help our people.

We already have an incredibly diverse range of people and ideas, now it's just time for the world to listen to them.

Author: Henry (he/they)