Beat 102 103’s innovative radio training programme called ‘My Beat Diary’ wraps for 2024.
The programme saw ten outstanding young people from the South East region share their story and what it’s like to live a day in their life.
The regional radio station recruited ten participants from across the counties of the South East to take part in this ‘fly on the wall’ type weekly short feature that ran over ten weeks from July to September.
All ten people took part in two days of intensive training at the Broadcast Centre in Waterford City where they learned about idea generation, voice recording, audio editing and story production.
Using their newly learned skills, each participant recorded elements of their life across one week and they then had to edit the audio, summarising their life into a fifteen-minute feature.
This programme was executively produced in house by Beat’s production team and was broadcast as part of The Sunday Grill with Orla Rapple each week for ten weeks.
Wexford native Orla Rapple, Producer and Presenter of the Sunday Grill, led the production of the programme. "My Beat Diary was a unique and inspiring series that allowed young people to reflect on their lives so far and it gave us an understanding as the listener as to what life is like for young people in the region. Each of the ten people involved worked so hard on telling their individual stories and garnered digital audio skills as a results that I hope they will take with them into the next steps of their lives."
Assistant Producer of the programme, Waterford's Lily Kennedy, says she was delighted to be part of the initiative. "I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work alongside Orla Rapple on such a tremendous project. As a Media Studies student and a Journalist starting out, I was delighted to work with the magnificent team and these wonderful people from right across the region, and be work on this community led programme."
Each of the ten participants’ final 15 minute audio packages are available on our website, Beat102103.com/podcasts.
This initiative is co-funded by Comisiún na Meán.
The full list of participants and contributors:
Week 1 - Carlow native, Mark Hanbidge. Mark is a media student in Dublin and is determined to make it in one area of the media in particular.
Week 2 - 16-year-old Ava Walsh from Waterford. Ava is a member of the Waterford Academy of Music and Art and loves taking part in their shows. Ava is also dealing with the sudden loss of her Dad and in her diary she describes coming to terms with her grief.
Week 3 - 25-year-old Jack is from Co. Wexford. Jack has realised that the nine to five life is not for him and he is determined to make his passion his career - music.
Week 4 - 18-year-old Aoibhinn is from West Waterford and went to a Gaelscoil thanks to her mam, an outgoing and adventurous person, who died when Aoibhinn was only 14. In her diary, Aoibhinn reflects on her mother's life, how she instilled in her a love of the Irish language and how she and her family are dealing with her death.
Week 5 - 21-year-old, Arthur Pushkin from Waterford. Arthur came out as gay as a teenager and describes that experience, especially a family member's reaction, and his journey ever since.
Week 6 - 17-year-old, Mia Dunne is from Co. Wexford. She is living with Tourette's syndrome; a neurological disorder that she wants people to understand better. From explaining her ticks and how this disorder affects her day to day life, Mia uncover her personal story of this hidden disability.
Week 7 - Waterford’s Sophie Phelan and Wicklows’ Shona Nugent, who happened to meet while on work experience here in Beat, are best friends. Shona describes her experience of sitting the Leaving Cert while Sophie talks about her tinnitus diagnosis. Their support for each other is evident throughout the diary.
Week 8 - Paraic Fearon. A 25-year-old Waterford resident who remembers moving to Ireland at the age of nine and reflects on his experience growing up as a biracial kid in both Ireland and the UK.
Week 9 - 22-year-old Mindulee Seneviratne was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Wexford as a baby. She has accomplished many things in school, college and beyond, and she tells us about it all in her diary.
Week 10 - Cyan Doyle, a twenty old Wexford student, whose love for drama and the arts has influenced her college choice.
