Season's Greetings!

We'd just like to say a big thank you to all those that have supported the UNITY project during 2009 and to all the young people that have worked with us over the past few months.

Our offices will be closed for two weeks now over the holidays but we'll be back in action from the 4th January 2010. We're really looking forward to all the exciting projects we have coming up in the new year so watch this space for details of how you can be involved.

Merry Christmas to you all and a very Happy New Year!

From Ina, Stephanie and everyone at Bread.

Have your say....

Over the past few months we've worked on a large variety of projects with young people from across Bristol. Here's what they have to say about what they've done:

St Paul's Carnival

'It was amazing to see all the different floats, seeing the different colours and the vibrancy of everything. I found it interesting recording the interviews that were going on and it really made me think about how to place the microphone to get the best recording. I enjoyed collecting background noise to build up an audio story of the day and I learnt a lot from listening to how other people do interviews which made me think how I could improve my own technique. It was interesting listening to everybody's roles within the carnival and how they made it happen. I want to work in acoustics in the future so the day gave me an insight into another job that uses the skills I have in a different way. It was nice to see people didn't have any inhibitions about working with people from different cultures and I enjoyed seeing everyone gathered together to celebrate the same thing. I didn't realise there were so many diverse people in Bristol and this is the first time I've been to the carnival. I really enjoyed the day and it showed a different side to Bristol that hadn’t seen before.' - Callum, 19

Bristol Asian Mela

'At the Mela I learnt how to interview people and take photos to share the event with other people who weren't there. I am interested in photography and sharing sights with other people. I will use the skills I learnt to further my knowledge of photography and learning more about new cultures. Being somewhere I would normally feel uncomfortable, but it was great 'cos I felt so welcome and comfortable and enjoyed every minute of it. I tried some food there, which I have never eaten before. After trying one thing I felt more open to trying new things because it didn't seem so gross. Even though our cultures are different, we are the same in so many ways. And we all just had a great time working together as a team. The main highlight was enjoying myself and getting a henna tattoo. Everybody there was really friendly and I would absolutely love to go there again as I had such a great day and would recommend it to friends.' - Natalie-Jade,18

UNITY Peer Education Sessions - Docklands Youth Club 

I'm really enjoying the sessions. I do like working in larger groups but its nice having a more intimate session in a smaller group. This sort of training is right up my street as it's helping me learn and improve. Learning is a big part of my life and ever since I left school I just try and take any chance I get to learn new stuff.' - Linzy, 21 

Mela Post-Production at the BBC

'I enjoyed editing with Jamie and I managed to get the gist of what he was doing. I learnt more about audio editing and I really liked the fast pace of the day. The environment was really relaxed and it was good to be involved.' - Adrian, 22

Bread Residential

'I found it really really good. Everything is still really new to me so it's nice to see how many great people are involved with BREAD. I thought wow this is amazing. The best thing was probably just meeting everyone and learning what all their skills are. It made me want to definitely get involved more and pursue more youth work stuff. I can definitely see myself in one of those roles in the future.' - Linzy, 21

BBC Face 2 Face Workshops 

'It was a really practical and hands-on experience, working with a different mentor each day and being treated like staff gave me a real feeling of what it would be like to work at the BBC. We worked with young people from different groups to create a film around the theme "Is the BBC for me?". We all got the opportunity to try each role in our groups from interviewing, to using the camera and working on audio. I learnt some new skills such as how to set up shots and improved my interviewing technique. All the people who worked with us were really relaxed and easy to talk to, we even got the chance to meet the head of BBC Bristol. It was a very rewarding experience and I've made lots of contacts. Over the next 12 weeks I'll be attending workshops to polish my skills and learn more about the industry and I hope to be doing some work with BBC Blast in the future.' - Oneil, 22 

'I really enjoyed interviewing weatherman Richard Anguin as he was a cool person and helped us develop the idea of our film. I think the workshops made a difference to me as I gained a lot of knowledge of people working in the newsroom and it helped me make new contacts. Is the BBC for me? Yes I do think it is for me. It was a real eye opener working here the last couple of days. I saw the highs and lows and now know what to expect. It was a lot of pressure working on something, having only 1 day to film and 1 day to edit but I got a real buzz from being so busy. I'm definitely going to be taking up the offer of mentoring and plan to focus more on the behind the scenes aspects of production. I just want to say thank you to UNITY, BREAD and the BBC for this opportunity, it was really important to me.' - Adrian, 22 

You can see photos and videos of all our past projects on our Flickr and youtube sites.