A new podcasting booth has been outfitted with computers, recording technology, a lighting system, carpeted floors and air conditioning and more than two dozen girls at the Lower Eastside Girls Club have been trained in producing podcasts.
The girls helped to construct the booth earlier this year and launched their first podcast online in September as part of the club’s Loisaida Speaks program. There are now five podcasts available for download on their website.
“Already, girls have taken the lead in choosing the topics that they will discuss and produce,” said organizers Purva Panday and Lyn Pentecost.
They’ve completed podcasting sessions about sexual harassment and school uniforms. “These sessions were complete with community mothers and activists volunteering to give interviews on their experience of sexual harassment in the community, and the intersection between freedom of expression through clothing and violence in schools as it relates to wardrobe choice,” Panday and Pentecost said.
WHAT WE USE:
- Garage Band music editing software.
- Soundtrack instrument software.
- iTunes audio player software.
- iRiver recording equipment.
- Microphone Madness microphones.
- Apple G5 computers.
Podcasts that address the significance of the 2,000th death of American troops in Iraq and how young women can stay safe while growing up in an urban environment are in the works. The girls are also producing a documentary about Muktar Mai, the Pakistani woman who recently spoke up about being raped at the hands of her village elders.
Community volunteers are helping the girls in various ways. A freelance journalist is helping the girls build interviewing, writing and investigation skills, and a graduate student from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts is helping the girls develop creative ways to use technology.
Journalists from WNYC are scheduled to speak to the girls about radio journalism this winter. And interns from NYU’s Interactive Technology Program are helping to train the girls club staff in using the podcasting production software and equipment and to write a guidebook for using the podcasting lab.
To produce the podcasts, the girls are using Garage Band, which lets them make their own music and experiment with sound systems for background music; Soundtrack, which lets the girls play with different “cuts” of instruments; and iTunes, which they use to listen to their recordings.
“Girls work with two G5 Apple computers, one digital keyboard for their own experimentation, a drum pad and iRiver recording equipment which is used in tandem with Microphone Madness microphones for off-site interviews and recording,” the organizers said.
The girls have not had to rely solely on the off-site microphones to do their work because many of the community leaders and activists they speak with willingly travel to the Girls Club to see for themselves how the podcasting program is working.
The Girls Club is soliciting funding from groups including the New York Women’s Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, the Staples Foundation and the New York Times Foundation to continue the podcasting program.
“We feel it a powerful statement for what is possible when creative minds and the willpower to make it happen come together,” they said.
