Launching lockdown podcasts for kids, charity’s and councils!

We’ve had our head down during lockdown and helped a bunch of value-driven and social good organisations to launch their podcasts.

From (online) working with a bunch of secondary school kids, to supporting a whole (virtual) variety show production, the show must go on (quite literally!).

So here’s what we’ve been up to in lockdown…

School Transition Advice with Year 7’s and PIE

Pursuing Individual Excellence (PIE) is an innovative, educational social enterprise based in Manchester. Following our work in schools with them earlier this year, they got us back into work with them on a project with current Year 7’s. The Empower project is a peer learning initiative whereby current students support new ones that are coming up from primary school.

Over one month, we virtually worked with the group to support them to create a ‘Transition’ podcast to advise new students. Remember, the group went from zero ‘podcast’ knowledge to learning what a podcast was, to producing a whole podcast at home using their mobile phones and tablets to record, and even designing the front cover – what an achievement! 

Sharing results with Stockport Borough Council

One of our latest podcast productions was recorded in the week’s just before lockdown. With the unfortunate rise in incidents raised in this podcast, we sped up the production so that it would be released asap.

It showcases the multi-agency approach of Stockport’s Domestic Abuse Partnership’s projects that support children affected by domestic abuse and was commissioned by Stockport Metropolitan Council.

The podcast is to inform and inspire similar projects across the UK and beyond. We think this is such a powerful example of how podcasts can be used to spread positive social impact, with the potential for further international effect.

You can listen to the full podcast series here.

Showcasing talent and stories with Stand Up Sisters

Stand Up Sisters was founded and led by women with lived experience of – Domestic Violence, Mental illness, Substance misuse, and/or of being a young carer, caring for a parent with a mental illness. We started working with the group from Bolton in March and through a month of online training, they came out the other end with their very own podcast!

Now, this programme was supposed to be delivered in person, but we weren’t going to let the small matter of lockdown stop this project, so we quickly adapted it to an online project. The group of ladies, (some who had never used zoom or listened to a podcast before!), learnt all about how to create a podcast. This included transforming homes into DIY recording booths and getting to grips with recording conversations over the internet! 

At the end of the month the fantastic group, without ever meeting in person, created a variety show in a podcast that features eight chapters and a soundtrack!

Helping social enterprises thrive with Flourish Together CIC

Our monthly podcasts for Flourish CIC, a fantastic organisation that supports female entrepreneurs typically comprise of things we’ve recorded in-person. For example live panel discussion or an interview – even the voiceovers are recorded in a studio! But alas, coronavirus scuppered our plans! 

Once again, we stuck two fingers up to lockdown and not only decided to record all future episodes remotely, but focus on subjects that would be helpful to our community during this time, including health and wellbeing and problem solving.

The ‘Supporting Women in Social Enterprise’ podcast started to share more wider the great stuff that was being discussed in the Flourish community and their events, so it was really a no brainer to think of ways to continue producing this fabulous podcast (not biased at all!)

Listen to the podcast here.

Forward-thinking learning with Children’s University

During lockdown we also banged out a new episode of the Children University: Live! Podcast – that was again, recorded just before lockdown. The innovative educational charity wanted to keep their podcast and work active by releasing these thought provoking recordings for their community of educationalists, teachers and tutors.  

Also, in the coming months MIC media is also going to be launching a podcast with Co-op. Keep tuned for more info about that!

As you can see, podcasts are wonderfully flexible and accessible. Our founder Vic often says that the world’s your oyster with podcasts, the scope for what you can do and include in a podcast is massive. Now imagine the different ways that you can share your message, expertise or story – you can do that in a powerful way with audio.