Bringing people together in a new community

The project

Vocational learning always works best with real-world projects involving real-world clients. As part of their Year 2 journalism work, students must show they understand how to use the codes and conventions of news reporting and multimedia feature-writing in order to connect with an audience. We did this by teaming up with local youth charity Romsey Mill, to explore the work they do helping young people in Cambridge and the surrounding area.

The brief

Romsey Mill set us two briefs to work to, one exploring their work in the fast-growing community of Camborne, the other looking at how they help tackle the problems caused by economic inequality in the north of Cambridge. Two students, Chloe Rowell and Zoe Conneely, took the Camborne brief, while the northern brief was covered by Oceane Carey and Mia Luttik. A fifth student, Amber Jones, reported on Romsey Mill's highly successful music programme.

The work

The students wrote their features using the multimedia storytelling application Shorthand, an industry-standard platform used for long-form reporting by (among others) the BBC and the Washington Post. All liaised with their client through meetings, emails and phone calls, and those who were able visited Romsey Mill's various centres to interview users and take photos. At the end, the work was formally presented at a client meeting at the charity's Cambridge headquarters.

The five features appear below - click through to read them in full.