RAN YOUNG: Youth Review Panel, online meeting 22-23 March 2022

On 22-23 March 2022, the RAN Young Platform (RAN YOUNG) organised its third RAN YOUNG Review Panel. Through an online workshop, 16 young people reviewed three projects from RAN’s Collection of Inspiring Practices. RAN Young’s participating members were split into small groups of reviewers and assigned to a practice.

Over two days, they participated in four sessions: first, practitioners presented their practice to a group of reviewers, explaining the project’s goals, strategy, outputs, and outcomes. Second, the reviewers interviewed the practitioner to make sure they understood the practice clearly.

Third, the practitioners left for the day while the reviewers performed a SWOT analysis to identify each practice’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Finally, the reviewers presented their findings and recommendations to the whole group, including all three practitioners and the other review groups to create an opportunity for wider discussion. The main takeaways are summarised below:

• Get creative. The three practices demonstrated that creative content, like games or videos, can make complex topics more approachable. They offer the chance to immerse viewers into information through narratives and can help retain their interest by combining learning with entertainment.
• Update your platforms. Social media continues to be an effective way to reach young people; however, practitioners should keep up with changing trends. As the reviewers warned, young people are leaving Facebook in favour of Instagram, YouTube, Discord, Telegram and TikTok. Social media campaigners will have to learn to navigate new platforms to retain their audience.
• Encourage critical thinking. All three practices developed content that incorporated critical thinking to their audience’s experience. In addition to presenting viewers with new information, they immersed viewers in the topic through experiential learning.
• Balance online with offline. Online platforms are a great way to reach a large number of people but, as the reviewers noted, they offer limited opportunities to engage with an audience. Incorporating online content into offline activities like workshops or school-based meetings can enhance a practice’s impact.
• Youth practices must be dynamic. Youthful language and references help engage young audiences, but they need to be updated frequently to avoid becoming outdated. The participants observed places in all three practices where outdated graphics, (youth) language or references could hurt its appeal.
• Capitalise on existing models for expansion. The reviewers noted that all three practices had many opportunities to expand their work by employing their existing content and models in new ways. This could mean adapting an existing model for a new context or finding additional applications for content.