Epic Light – In English

The Epic Light program (“Mieletöntä valoa” in Finnish) aims to strengthen the media skills and the voice of young adults that face challenges in their lives due to disabilities, mental health problems, social exclusion and/or unemployment. In the program we focus on the ”healthy”, functional side of people and strengthen it. The focus is on doing.

Various media productions are made at Epic Light: for example, magazines, radio programs, podcasts, video productions, streaming. We believe in learning by doing: with the exception of some workshops, the skills of making media are not studied; we start making media together only through a small introduction.

At the same time, Epic Light is a media in itself; we operate as real media. Both audiovisual team and magazine editors meet once a week for editorial meetings. In those meetings, productions are conceptualized, work tasks are divided, and the progress of productions is monitored. The work itself takes place at separately agreed times. In addition, there are weekly teams for photography and for current media discussions.

Media as a medium offers everyone tasks of a suitable size according to their ability to function, and its project nature corresponds to the project-like nature of working life. By making productions, working life skills improve almost unnoticed. All completed productions are published on our website mieletontavaloa.fi. Several participants feel that they can influence things through Epic Light media. By practicing making professional media, stigma dissipates, and one gets confidence to try new things and a sense of accomplishment.

What we do?

-Radio, video and VALOA! -magazine

2020 Epic Light published (among other things):

• Three Valoa! magazines. The third one was released as a supplement of Voima magazine (70 000 copies nationwide).
• World Village Festival radio: We did a festival radio with the organizer, Fingo, despite the in-person festival having been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Video productions: Artist interviews, promotional videos with/for partner organizations.
• Live stream productions: Several seminars/panels, “Morning TV” for Mielenterveysmessut (Finnish Association of Mental Health’s event)
• Podcasts: Over 30 radio programmes, interviews and “experts by experience” stories.
• All our productions are available at mieletontavaloa.fi/mediaa/

Social Empowering Radio – Job Shadowing

Social Empowering Radio – Job shadowing, is an international project of three organizations. The project is founded to share practices on empowering radio work with young adults who are marginalized and in vulnerable position. The goals of the project are:

• strengthening employees’ skills with job shadowing to support young adults in challenging life situations. Job shadowing is a procedure which enables learning by observing working methods of other operators and organisations.
• to encourage new people to participate in working with community radio and media.

The project involves three organizations, all with experience of radio work with young people: Finland: Epic Light (Sosped Foundation), Italy: Radio Stella 180 Young (Associazione 180 Amici L’Aquila), Germany: Radio Corax (Corax ev initiative fur Freies radio). The project is EU-funded and is independently responsible for its content.

Our productions in English

Interviews from World Village Festival Radio

Interview from Finland’s Social Forum