Media students have worked closely with Darlington Borough Council on its Safer Streets initiative to help tackle intimidation and violence against women and girls in the town.
First year Creative Media students at Darlington’s Queen Elizabeth (QE) Sixth Form College have designed posters and video campaigns to give a young person’s perspective on how to raise awareness of the problem.
Their ideas have proven valuable to the wider campaign work being done by the council, in partnership with Durham Constabulary and the Durham Police and Crime Commissioner, to educate men and boys, and help everyone feel safer on the streets of Darlington.
Amber Fenwick, who is studying Creative Media, said: “I tried to portray that sense of danger a woman can feel when a man walks too closely behind her, because I’ve certainly felt anxious and intimidated by strangers who have approached me when I’ve been walking alone. I think it’s really important to get the message across that this kind of behaviour, particularly in the dark, can feel really threatening.”
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Student Luke Robinson said: “It’s been a really interesting project to work on and particularly valuable because we partnered with a ‘real’ client. We received some fantastic feedback and constructive criticism.”
Safer Streets is a UK-wide Government initiative that has seen County Durham and Darlington receive over £1.5m over the last 18 months to make the region safer through a variety of projects.
Last year, more than £450,000 was awarded under the Safer Streets 3 Fund to support improvements in Darlington Town Centre that help women and girls feel safer. The money has been used to improve street lighting around bus stops and taxi ranks, deliver training and education programmes, and buy e-bikes for police and council civic enforcement officers to respond to incidents more easily.
Andrew Allison, DBC’s Community Resilience Officer, chose to work with QE media students to examine how young people might choose to highlight the issues to their peers.
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“We found the experience of working with the students really useful and very informative,” he said. “We were able to get the ideas and views of young people, which helps inform our own campaigns, often highlighting our misconceptions of how young people think and what they know.
“We would definitely work with the QE again as they were very accommodating and gave us the time to ‘pitch’ our project to the students.”
QE students worked on the project over an eight-week period. Course leader Beccy Vickers said: “The students really connected with the project and delivered some powerful and thought-provoking campaigns that hit the brief,” she said.
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