In 2004 the young people of the Youth Empowerment Partnership Project expressed a generic interest for video-making, the same year the first YEPP transnational activity centered on video-making took place in Torino, Italy: Moving images, local realities. The young participants produced their own talk-show and they raised the interest for media in the whole YEPP.
At the 1st YEPP Conference of 2005, the idea of creating a specific media transnational network within the YEPP community, took shape. It was the birth of the EmpowerMedia Network, an international network of youth workers, young people and media practitioners who use digital media as a tool for youth and community empowerment, in accordance with to the core values of YEPP. In June 2005 Andrea Serafini was appointed as the Coordinator of EMN, a position that he is covered until present.
From 2005 to 2008, several EMN organized several workshops for young people and training courses for youth leaders: EMN Coach Training Workshop, Torino, Italy (July 2005); The Cube of Ibsen, Skien, Norway (September 2006); Seen and Heard workshop, Dublin, Ireland (May 2007); Strategic Planning Meeting, Berlin, Germany (February 2008 ); Workshop on broadcast formats, Antwerp, Belgium ( August 2008); Esker Workshop, Ireland (June 2008); Media Ethics and web TV international workshop (September 2008).
At the beginning of 2008 EMN held it first strategic planning meeting, all EMN Coaches and YEPP Local Coordinators were invited to Berlin on the 4th and 5th February to discuss, identify and define EMN's Goals, Objectives, Activities and Management Structure. The outcomoe of the meeting was a Strategic-Operational Plan for 2008-2010 and the appointment of the EMN Management Committee. The Management Committee gave mandate to the EMN Coordinator to prepare the EMN Code of Conduct, including the Standards of Conduct and the Code of Observance. The EMN Code of Conduct was approved by the EMN Management Committee in November 2008.
In 2008 EMN made also its official debut before the representatives of the major European, North American and Russian foundations when Compagnia di San Paolo presented it to the 19th Annual General Assembly and Conference of the European Foundation Centre, held in Istanbul, Turkey. The EMN Coordinator was appointed to design the session together with the Session Moderator Mrs Yolanda Jansen of Mama Cash Foundation. The session was denominated: “Youth empowerment and involvement through the media” and was described as follows in the conference programme:
“Is video-making a tool to stimulate the development of social communication and active citizenship among young people? The session will show how to engage young people in active media work and support them in developing a “critical media literacy”, which means developing a critical, independent and discerning view of all the inputs coming from the media. Participants will learn what social networking spaces have to offer to enhance more active citizenship. The EmpowerMediaNetwork (EMN) – an innovative form of local and transnational media work by and for young people – will be presented to introduce the discussions on social networking through new media also illustrated by popular websites like Mogulus, Facebook and MySpace.”
In 2009 EMN followed its Strategic-Operational Plan and sought the partnership of organizations outside the boundaries of the YEPP network while implementing two major international media activities: the Media Stacks EMN Coach Training, Ireland (September 2009) and the Create & Share Workshop, Italy (October 2009). The latter workshop was specifically addressing the ever increasing use that young people make of digital platforms for posting and sharing contents. Over the years, EMN has followed and adapted to the evolution of the web and the impact that this has on young people at large and even more so on the EMN target age range of 15 to 21.
In 2010 EMN a new Management Committee was elected by the YEPP sites and a new Operational Plan was created, the international joint activities were limited to the second edition of the Create and Share Workshop in Turin (November 2010).
In June 2011 the YEPP programme closed its ten year phase and opened a democratic process to determine its future evolution. The EMN Coordinator took part to the YEPP post 2011 working group which gave birth to the YEPP IRC (International Resource Centre) with a new Management Committee. EMN will now be one of the services that YEPP IRC provides to its partners. EMN will cooperate with any organization active in the field of media for youth and community empowerment while keeping a specific focus on providing assistance, training and international exchanges opportunities to the YEPP partners. It was agreed by the YEPP Post 2011 Working Group that the EMN Management Committee would cease to exist and the management of the Network was undertaken by the YEPP Steering Committee. An Advisory Board was also established, with the specific task of assisting the EMN Coordinator in designing and implementing media related activities aimed at youth and community empowerment and to create training materials.
The EMN Coordinator and the Advisory Board met in January 2012 to examine the present situation of EMN and, in the light of the results of past seven years of EMN activities, identify the best way forward. In particular, the Advisory Board considered what worked and what didn't produce the expected results, to provide its advice in order to achieve a better functioning and efficiency of the network.
The present situation of financial crisis, that involves most European countries, demands a streamlining of the activities management in order to achieve a more efficient use of the resources. This will also contribute to make our operations more attractive to donors in general and will be in line with the request that our main donor, Compagnia di San Paolo, made to all its grantees to operate in a more efficient and co-operative way.
Given that the financial crisis and the high unemployment rates across Europe will create an ever increasing number of young people at risk of social exclusion or of lesser opportunities, the Advisory Board feel that EMN must address the critical point of the past and develop an holistic strategy to reach precisely those young people who are our main target. Thus, a deep reflection on future EMN policies is needed in order to create opportunities of empowerment that have a greater impact.
