The right message

Friday, February 3, 2012

If children are our future (yes, a cliche, but don’t cliches become cliches because, over the years, they have been found to be true?), then the teenagers involved in Community Action for Safe Teens give us hope. Recently, these kids from various high schools in the area, including Hollis Brookline, were involved in a Media Power & You in Action Workshop in which 18 of them created three Healthy Choices public service announcements that will be broadcast locally.

These teens represented youth from the Hollis/Brookline, Milford, Souhegan and Wilton/Lyndeborough high schools. The training was provided by Media Power Youth of Manchester, which teaches kids how media can be used to promote healthy choices and avoid at-risk behaviors.

According to a story in last week’s Journal, students learned media literacy skills and how media markets alcohol and other substances. They learned how to develop “the positive message” and created their own skits and storyboards, and by the end of the day created their own public service announcements to be shared with their peers and community. (If you didn’t see it, go to www.cabinet.com and click on Hollis Brookline Journal).

We like two things, at least, about this:

1. The creation of positive public service announcements is a good way to reach out to the entire community. The ads might have been created by teenagers, but they go far beyond kids: They can touch adults, too.

2. In creating the ads, the message the kids intend to send to others also touches them. While creating them they must, obviously, think about the message.

This is another example of adults getting involved with kids in a way that is, without a doubt, positive and that sends a message of involvement without judgment, which is precisely what teenagers need.