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John Bird and Michael Norton to mentor teen campaigners on TV

Fundraising | 1 Oct 2008

The Big Issue’s John Bird and Unltd’s Michael Norton are among several people who have been recruited to help with the production of a new television programme that is to follow the progress of 20 young campaigners on their quest to change the world.

Battlefront is a nine-month interactive project for Channel 4 Education. The issues the teenagers will be campaigning on range from tackling gun and knife crime on London streets to creating more spaces for young people to play in.

The initiative began in August with an online competition inviting teenagers to be selected as the 20th campaigner. Campaign progress is to be followed and filmed, ready for broadcast later this year.

Bird and Norton are to act to act as mentors for the young campaigners who are attempting to garner the support of the nation for their projects. Norton, who won the Outstanding Contribution award at this year’s Professional Fundraising Awards, will be working alongside Oli Barrett, director of Connected Capital, to mentor Jordan Stephens (pictured), 16, who wants “to stop people doing silly, unnecessary things that are bad for the environment like dropping litter, using a 4x4 car, driving short distances instead of walking, leaving the lights on when they go out…”

Stephens’ support group met for the first time this week. “What he wants to do is create a website with lots of ideas for how people can contribute to addressing climate change and environmental issues,” explained Norton.

“Instead of being worthy and preaching at people, we talked about ways he could be controversial. It’s a bit like fundraising – ask in a boring way and people won’t give to you, so we tried to get him to think creatively. We also encouraged him to think big by discussing the international franchising of his project.”

Stephens, who is already an international climate champion for the British Council, can call upon his mentors as he needs them. Each campaigner will be assigned two or three mentors, who are all experts in various fields from campaigning to advertising and marketing.

Financial backing will be important to the success of the campaigns and as such the young people will be expected to fundraise.

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