Unknown Voices is
a project by
Women's Radio
Group in association with Exciting
Writing teacher Paddy Gormley.
The pilot phase of the project was funded
by GLE Fast Forward
and hosted
by Crisis
Skylight, London E1.
Click on the images
on the right
for the respective websites.
On-Line
Audio Recordings
The Recordings page features 32
click-to-play
audio recordings
in which men and women
speak candidly and movingly about
their experiences of homelessness.
Click on the image below
for the recordings page.
Radio Programme
A radio programme about the
Unknown Voices project is now available for broadcast. The
programme includes:
interviews with members of the Unknown
Voices team and with some of the women trained by them,
recordings made during the course for training purposes,
"behind the scenes" interviews with Richard Stevens (Fast Forward
Grants), Leslie Morphy (Chief Executive, Crisis UK) and Richard
Pace (Head of Crisis Skylight, London E1),
illustrative extracts from the Unknown Voices interviews.
The full programme has a running time
of 58 minutes. It may be shortened or serialised to fit shorter
broadcast slots. Use the Contact Form at the bottom of this
page to request further information.
The pilot
phase of the project, completed in February 2008, had two objectives:
to involve homeless and otherwise disadvantaged women in a training
programme in which they could learn how to record and edit their
own and other people's stories;
to make digital audio recordings of the stories of other, similarly
disadvantaged people, men and women, for presentation in this website.
Some of the women who completed the initial training course in
2007 are continuing their training in 2008 with further support
from Women's Radio Group (WRG).
This training leads to units accredited by the Open
College Network.
WRG hopes to assist these
women in finding employment in the radio industry in due course.
Phase 2 — How You Can Help
Whilst the first phase of the project is now complete, the organisers
very much hope that the Unknown
Voices project will continue to develop for many years to
come.
Specifically, we hope to:
offer the training programme to further homeless and otherwise
marginalised women;
help other agencies to launch their own Unknown Voices initiatives
using the template that we have devised;
build the library of recordings presented on this website,
perhaps extending it to other socially marginalised groups: refugees,
ex-offenders, etc;
enable agencies and community workers to use Unknown Voices
interviews to cathartic effect.
Please use the Contact
Form at the bottom of this page if you would like to discuss
opportunities for further development of the project
or simply to comment on this website
or the issues it raises. All messages will be sent to
project co-founders Julie Hill and Paddy Gormley.
The
Recordings
Copyright
The interviewees have generously given permission for intimate
details of their lives to be presented in this website, in the
hope that others may learn from their experiences. However,
the interviewees reserve all rights in their respective recordings. No
recording may be broadcast in any other medium whatsoever without
the prior knowledge and consent of the individuals concerned.
Contact Paddy Gormley directly
if you wish to seek such permission: Paddy teaches regularly
at Crisis
Skylight, London E1, and knows most of the interviewees
personally. He is also the custodian of the recordings themselves
and the designer of this website.
