IBC2023 Social Impact Awards: Diversity and Inclusion finalists revealed

Overall, the IBC2023 Social Impact Awards recognise an initiative or campaign that is making a positive impact, socially, ethically or environmentally, in the wider world. They are a chance to celebrate the industry’s willingness to engage with today’s big issues, like sustainability, diversity and wellbeing.

Ade Rawcliffe, Group Director of Diversity and Inclusion at ITV, is Chair of the IBC Social Impact Awards Jury for 2023. “As a sector, we are privileged to be in a position to help drive positive societal change, create more equitable and inclusive workplaces, and encourage sustainable behaviours,” she says.

The three finalists in the Diversity and Inclusion Award category are: Mama Youth and its work in training under-represented young people in media, ScreenCraft Works and its cross border mentoring community, and SWI swissinfo.ch, with its inclusive language auditing.

MAMA Youth Project: Helping young people into meaningful M&E careers

The MAMA Youth Project supports motivated and under-represented young adults into sustained employment in the Media.

MAMA Youth works with young adults facing challenges and provides training, work experience and access to industry networks. It has helped over 700 young people change their lives, supporting their recovery from life challenges like homelessness, abuse, mental health, ex-offenders and care-leavers.

There are three significant levels of impact. For the young people, it transforms the lives of those who have limited opportunities. For the industry, it provides companies with ready to work talent from under-represented backgrounds. And for society, it gives young people meaningful careers, making them self-sustainable, taking them out of the benefit system and turning them into positive role models for their peers.

In the last 18 months, the MAMA Youth Project charity has trained more young people than ever. Since its inception in 2005, 96 percent of alumni were in sustained employment one year after completing their training.

The MAMA Youth Project has also increased its provision for pastoral care in line with the increasing vulnerability of young people in its cohorts, including those who have fled war in Ukraine, those affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy, victims of poverty, young people with disabilities, marginalised groups and those with a variety of life challenges.

The project has extended its outreach initiatives to ‘the hard to reach’, engaging more industry partners than ever and providing more free enrichment activities for young people aged 18-30. These include intensive TV production training programmes, digital media training, media employability workshops, runner workshops, taster days, panel events, live info sessions and ‘holiday camps’ for 14-18 year olds, exposing them to careers in the media industry.

SWI swissinfo.ch: Running a multilingual digital newsroom

SWI swissinfo.ch has introduced a data-driven process to evaluate the use of inclusive language in its multilingual digital newsroom.

SWI swissinfo.ch is a news and information company, part of the public Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. It introduced the language auditing process to evaluate the level of female representation in its output, as well as analysing its use of inclusive language in the four main languages (English, French, German and Italian) out of the 10 in which the digital newsroom publishes.

Inclusive language guidelines were drawn up in all ten publishing languages and an editorial policy of zero tolerance for the use of the generic masculine was introduced. To monitor this for the main four languages, an annual inclusive language audit began with its own methodology.

While improvement is ongoing and the journey toward a form of journalism without the masculine generic is a long one, the second audit, held in 2022, detected an improvement of 45% overall on gender neutral language, with masculine generic representing the main improvement opportunity.

In the first audit of 2023, 40 items of content across the four languages’ output have been analysed and evaluated against the SWI-audit toolkit that took into consideration frequency of non-inclusive language instances and also looked at qualitative elements of portrayal. This year, SWI saw a continued, significant improvement in terms of the use of gender-neutral language.

ScreenCraft Works: Strengthening global screen industry connections

ScreenCraft Works is a global community for under-represented film and TV professionals with cross-border mentorship at its heart.

The initiative launched at the end of 2021 to widen opportunities for transnational career development and knowledge exchange. It also aims to strengthen global screen industry connections for under-represented film and TV craftspeople across developing and developed countries, diasporic communities and networks of displaced people.

The community has grown to include people in over 50 countries. The roles include: editing, sound design, composers, production management, producers, post-production supervisors, animation and VFX.

Examples include a mentee who is one of the few women editors and colourists in Pakistan, self-taught via YouTube. She was matched with an LA-based Emmy-nominated editor as her mentor. The mentee has gone on to support others. Another mentee fled the Ukraine war and has been matched with an award-winning Danish sound designer and now has work in the UK.

Community membership and activity are free of charge to avoid exclusion and ScreenCraft Works draws on a network of sponsors, supporters and volunteers with shared values.

The low-cost model is achieved through myriad small interventions and voluntary acts of kindness, which support people at an individual level and cumulatively contribute to a global industry culture shift.

Over a 12-month period, the community has arranged 57 cross-border mentoring partnerships (each lasts nine months) and 75 CrossBorder Coffees (informal one-hour virtual meetups). It has hosted 10 Cross-Border Conversation online talks and twelve virtual Cross-Border Networking events.

The IBC2023 Social Impact Awards

This year, the Social Impact Awards are a part of IBC’s Changemakers programme, on Sunday 17^th September, which focuses on initiatives aimed at making the industry more equitable, inclusive, accessible and green. The winners will be announced at a presentation at the end of the programme.