Tag: NEYPF

Get LOUD over homophobia!

North Edinburgh Young Peoples Forum member LAURA says we must speak out when we encounter homophobia …

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How are the LGBTQIA* community portrayed in the media?

Society has certainly progressed in the acceptance of people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex or asexual, but how do we portray them in media?

Many people are still offended by people identifying as LGBTQ, but with same-sex marriage being legalised in many countries and states, the media is starting to recognise and portray more LGBTQIA people in films and TV Shows.

However, if a character in a TV show is portrayed, for example, as being lesbian, their sexuality is almost always a huge part of the plot and they are commonly shown as having had many girlfriends just to prove that they are lesbian. The same goes for people being portrayed as gay.

But TV shows are reluctant to feature transgendered people, whether they are trans-male/trans-female or simply non-binary, and asexuals/aromantics are normally shown as people who haven’t ‘met the right person’.

However, while TV Shows and films are certainly improving the way they portray LGBTQIA people, some channels are still portraying them negatively.

Stonewall, a charity for LGBTQIA people, discovered that “Gay people and their lives are five times more likely to be portrayed in negative terms on the BBC” and that “BBC programmes frequently use gay sexuality for making jokes or as an insult, and rely heavily on clichéd stereotypes”.

In July 2010, Stonewall published research about representation in youth television: 49% of portrayal was stereotypical and 0.6 of the content they viewed portrayed LGBTQIA people ‘positively and realistically’.

So what is there to do about negative portrayal of the LGBTQIA community in media?

Obviously, you can complain to the television companies, but not a lot can come from a single complaint letter or e-mail. The key to making a difference is to get LOUD.

You can get into contact with various different charities, Stonewall is an excellent example of one of them, and organise a protest or campaign. You can get your friends and families all to write letters of complaint – the more the merrier. You can put what you’ve seen on the internet for the world to see. There are countless other ways to stop discrimination against LGBTQIA people, and its easy to get involved.

Whether you’ve read something homophobic in a newspaper or magazine, seen stereotypes of LGBTQIA people on TV, or heard something offensive on the radio, it’s easy to get involved, and it’s your responsibility. If everyone waits for somebody else to do it – nobody will.

You can see Stonewalls page about the portrayal of LGTQIA people in the media at: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/what_we_do/research_and_policy/2875.asp

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Laura, North Edinburgh Young Peoples Forum

Pictures by Nicki and Josh (NEYPF)

* Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and asexual.

West Pilton: tackling the scourge of antisocial behaviour

Brandin, a member of North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum, is concerned about the ongoing antisocial behavior in the area:

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A gang of local youths have committed many crimes in North Edinburgh recently: they are an extreme danger to the public and themselves. The groups has at least twenty members and is based in Pilton.

The crimes they commit are inexcusable and disruptive to the community: their crimes include breach of the peace, vandalism and theft. Recently an attack on an innocent Chinese man has created massive fear in the North Edinburgh community.

A local shop in West Pilton is a meeting point for the gang. The shop owner does not want to be held responsible for them being outside his shop as the gang threaten anything that attempts to stop what they are doing.

Local people are keen for the police to start doing something about the gang but they are sometimes hindered by the law – police are not allowed to give chase to the troublesome youths as they tear up local green spaces and the streets due to the risk to the health and wellbeing to the riders, so the gang is able to run free,  behaving like lunatics.

The police have caught many of the youths and many have dozens of charges on their criminal record. Many have been given ASBOs, but they just turn up again and never serve any jail time – which many locals think is appalling.

I spoke to an young lady who said that the group are a ‘joke’. She said the police are not doing enough as the group are extreme vandals who are are a big threat to the community. She added: “The young people have taken over the community and are committing needless crimes. The police have said that they don’t have the resources but it is not difficult to ask other police stations for the things they need. They have to do more – and fast – before things escalate.”

Local people are not happy with what the gang are doing and many feel the police are not doing enough to stop the gang. At a public meeting in West Pilton recently the public made their views clear to councillors and police representatives.

The community is now waiting for explanations – and hopes that something is done to tackle the problem in the near future.

Brandin, North Edinburgh Young Peoples Forum

Josh and Nikki of the NEYPF took these photographs in and around West Pilton Park last week:

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHowever local police insist problems in West Pilton are being addressed. In a statement on Facebook last Friday, Edinburgh Police Division said:

‘In North Edinburgh we are continuing to tackle antisocial behaviour and disorder in the area. Additional officers have been brought in from other parts of the East Command area to assist local officers particularly in the Forth Ward. In the last two weeks alone:

– 45 people have been arrested or reported for a variety of offences including possession of drugs, offensive weapons, antisocial behaviour, hate crime and housebreaking.

– 14 people have been arrested on warrants issued by the Court.

– 8 stolen vehicles have been recovered in the area and returned to their rightful owners.

– Over 120 persons have been stopped and searched with 12 being found in possession of suspected controlled drugs.

– Road checks have resulted in 4 uninsured vehicles being seized and taken off the street and the drivers reported.

Local Area Commander Chief Inspector Sara Buchanan added: “Police Scotland are committed to tackling these issues in conjunction with our partners in both the short and long term in order to keep people safe and support the local community”.

NE Young People’s Forum: last chance for feedback!

NEYPF

Hi Again,

We at North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum are carrying out a review of our group/project/service. 

However there is only this week left to get your feedback in to us and help us better the Youth Forum … the deadline for feedback sheets (see below) is THIS FRIDAY (24th October 2014).

NEYPF Organisations Questionaire (2)

So let’s take 5 mins to have a coffee or tea and complete our mini questionnaire (we promise it only takes 5mins) and we really need and value your feedback!

We would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone for their help and support, and an extra thanks to everyone who completes our mini question as part of the review and sends it back over.

Thanks

Kind Regards

North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum

Reply to: neypf@hotmail.co.uk

Scoop! Roving reporters session with NEYPF

DSCF1824We held a training day with North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum (NEYPF) at PCA’s Ferry Road Drive office on Monday.

Four local young people took part in a range of activities over the course of the day – analysing news, preparing for and conducting interviews, some photography and selecting images to accompany stories, research and then writing their own articles. We covered quite a lot during the session, and if the young folk weren’t exhausted by the end of the day I certainly was!

The results of their hard work will be seen here soon, and NEYFP will also be producing an article for a Youth NEN section of our next newspaper. Well done, guys!

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The facts of The Matter

The Matter is a new way for young people to tell their councils and governments what they think about issues that concern them, and a group of local teenagers unveiled the first edition of their new publication and presented their findings at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre last month.

Commissioned by the Total Craigroyston initiative, six young people from North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum spent six manic weeks researching, consulting, interviewing, writing and producing their very own newspaper – The Matter – to articulate younger people’s views on how their voices can be heard in the Forth community planning process. The teenagers did receive some assistance – The Matter was supported by design agency Snook in partnership with Young Scot and Firstport.

We promised last month that the young journalists would produce their own article about the project for NEN – and here it is:

Matters2us article

Matters2us is our group name for the newspaper that expresses young people’s voices. We as young people got the privilege of becoming the first ever pilot group to have produced a paper with the team called: The Matter. Our deadline was 6 weeks, so you can imagine how strenuous the whole process was!

We were given a client, an editor and a designer to help us produce the paper and went out to explore the Forth Neighbourhood Community and ask a question. That question that was given to us by the client – Tim from Total Craigroyston/Edinburgh City Council – the question was ‘How can young people’s voices be heard successfully in the Forth Neighbourhood Community Planning Process?’

We consulted with roughly 200 young people around the area and out all of the ideas into the paper. With the ideas the young people gave, we produced 3 big ideas and on our launch night we explored these ideas in greater detail with the audience. The launch night was about highlighting the achievement of us making a newspaper and getting it known to the local community more, whilst also letting the public know about our process of the paper.

In the audience were members of the general public from the community, Edinburgh City Council workers, Councillors, young scot, snook and young people. The outcome was fantastic: people want to support us in finding funding to do a second print and  praised us on the work we had done.

We as a group extremely enjoyed this experience and hope to do it again sometime in the future!

North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum

NEYPF@hotmail.co.uk