Discussing The Intersect, our Youth Board’s podcast
The Intersect is an exciting new podcast made and produced by the Mayor’s Fund for London Youth Board, discussing the real-life overlaps of the biggest issues facing young people. In season one, the focus is on mental health. Topics have included neurodivergence, social media, academia, and the cost of living. With members of the Youth Board leading on hosting and producing, each stage of the podcast is developed by young people.
With series one underway we spoke to The Intersect production team (and Youth Board) member Basma about how the podcast got to this stage.
What was the initial idea for the podcast and why did you want to start one?
Basma: We all had a common goal of ensuring young people’s voices are heard and we thought that a podcast run by young people would be the best way to express this. We had multiple Youth Board meetings to discuss the aims of the podcast, the goals we all had in mind for how this would run and even ideas that we might include. Essentially, the podcast is a way in which our voices can be heard and by inviting other young people and knowledgeable guests, we are able to provide a platform to share their experiences with the rest of the world too.
What were the first stages of it being created? And how did the theme come about?
B: The meetings leading up to the introduction of the podcast were very insightful. Having already discussed ideas amongst ourselves on our podcast group chat as well as in Youth Board meetings, we reached an agreement on the name and branding. Each member was able to share and present their ideas and the reasoning behind it and we all agreed upon “The Intersect”. A name that truly shows what our brand and podcast stand for; a cross section between important topics that affect young people’s lives. The branding was then initially created by myself and this had gone through many drafts that were all shared with the team. We experimented with various colours, fonts and icons and over the weeks we were able to edit and finalise our branding. As a group, we wanted to start the podcast with a topic that has affected each one of us in a different way and we believed that it would be beneficial for our guests and other young people to share their experiences with everyone, in hopes of a change to a topic that is seen as quite ‘taboo’ amongst young people, especially young boys.
What support did you have in developing The Intersect?
B: We held an initial meeting with Jenny (Halpern Prince MBE – MFL Trustee) and Ottillie at Halpern PR, which was rather insightful and was a pivotal step in creating the podcast. We were provided with ideas for taking the podcast forward, connections to help the hosts of the podcast, suggestions for equipment and even a potential question layout for our podcast. We were lucky enough to have a workshop session with the founders and creators of The Backstory, a youth-led podcast also showcasing vital insights into young people’s lives. This was very helpful in providing a base for introducing our podcast and giving us key distinguishers from other podcasts.
Once you had the concept and content and gained an understanding of how podcasts were produced what happened next?
B: Having created and finalised our concept and content with the rest of the team, we scheduled a mock run at the Halpern PR offices. This was a huge eye opener to how each episode would run and what it would entail for guests as well as hosts. We each took on a different role, me and Kalash acted as guests whilst Huda acted as the host. This was a very different, yet insightful, experience as we were able to get a real feel for what our upcoming episodes would look like as well as showing us how we would be able to improve.
Where do you want the podcast to go in the future?
B: The podcast is something that the Youth Board values and believes will have a huge impact on young people all around the UK. In the future, we seek to have many more guests in which we can delve deep into more concerning topics that young people aim to understand and explore. We’d love to see the podcast reaching and helping as many young people as possible, providing each one of them with a platform where their voices can be heard.
Episodes one and two are NOW Live on Spotify: listen here
The Mayor’s Fund for London’s Youth Board is made up of young Londoners aged 16-24 from across the capital. Many have been or still are participants of our programmes, whilst others joined to represent the voices of their peers and to influence the support the charity is able to provide. We inform, consult and co-create with our Board as a whole and with individual members.
