Elaina Boateng shared her own career journey as she co-hosted an evening to inspire young people from Hackney looking for their big breaks in the world of work.
‘This BBC outreach project taught me the importance of diverse recruitment’
BBC Outreach’s event is one of the most rewarding and entertaining I have been a part of since I began my career at the BBC, three years ago.
I have always been ionate about helping young people reach their full potential. As a graduate of Mama Youth Project, a charity that helps BAME 18s-25s get into the media industry, I have seen the impact the charity has had on my career, by installing self-belief in me, so this is something I am determined to onto my generation of BAME professionals.
The project gave young volunteers from Hackney CVS the opportunity to plan their own employability event to be held in New Broadcasting House, and with the help of BBC staff volunteers as facilitators.
We met up with the young people to plan what elements they wanted to include in the event, who the key speakers for them would be, and how to best meet their expectations.
Monthly meetings made for a great event which involved food, performances, workshops in CV and personal branding, plus keynote speakers Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth and entrepreneur Florence Adepoju.
I had the privilege of co-hosting this in the 4th floor collaboration zone, which was transformed into a vibrant careers event with over 40 young people there. My co-host, Sade Okusi. one of the talent scouts from Hackney CVS, helped me lead it with confidence and high energy. After expressing how nervous she was before the event began, it was rewarding to see her flourish as it went on.
As the first event I have ever co- hosted; I was certainly stretched and challenged to keep it lively, engaging for a diverse audience and more importantly, on time. Additionally, running the ‘my brand’ workshop for the young people helped us all see how useful the device of a newspaper front page was a practical means to outline our skills. We all left with our own ‘newspaper headline’ to sell ourselves – BBC people as well as the guests.
Since the event, I am still in touch with some of the young people and I hope to be able to contribute to more of their personal events and enterprises in the future.
As a production coordinator by day, I help to recruit work experience, runners and production management assistants. Working with the young people of this BBC Outreach project has taught me the importance of diverse recruitment, to help create television content that represents our diverse country.
