Objectives
The project contributed to the promotion of mental health of young people by strengthening their competencies concerning health and new media.
Teenagers are constantly faced with changes, rigorous requirements and physical, social and psychological loads. Psychological protection factors, such as selfconfidence, a reflected view on media, role models and trust in their own abilities, support them to deal with these changes as part of their everyday lives and reflect them.
Part of these protective factors was to strengthen the competencies regarding health and media skills of young people and to raise awareness of the relationship between (mental) well-being and one's own life.
Implementation
queraum. cultural and social research was, together with wienxtra-media center, responsible for the implementation of the project.
The staff members of the partner organisations did reflect in a 5-day-workshops health promotion issues with young people along their interests and priorities. As new media is an important issue in the life of young people, the workshops will be carried out by experts of health promotion for young people and experts of new media literacy. In these workshops, the young people did a short film production, which intended to increase self-esteem and to stimulate reflection on issues of health and media literacy. In addition, the young people acquired technical and creative skills and were motivated to explore film as a medium to express their feelings.
After the 5-day workshop, the short films were reflected together with the young filmmakers and they showed them to a selected audience. For both, the teaching of media skills as well as the thematization of health literacy, the project focused on a participatory approach.
It was a great finale of the project and a good starting point for the following project “I am beautiful”.