For the second time during the making of the Touch documentary, Chocolate Films has gone to Graz in Austria! Second time round for Ana but a first for Ally, they went out there to visit the Austrian partners at Caritas Jugenstreetwork and document the research being carried out by Mike Seal of Newman University and peer researcher Richard Campbell. Just to re-cap, The documentary is following the research of academics from Newman University as they investigate the issue of street violence for young people across Europe, and the role that street-based youth workers can play in helping to reduce violence. Graz is one of 4 European case studies (the others being Bradford and Islington in the UK, and Cologne in Germany) for the research.
The weather wasn't too kind to us upon arrival, however the welcome was. Filming got straight underway as Richard was continuing with his music workshop. Rap and hip-hop is really popular amongst the youths at Caritas Jugenstreetwork so it seemed apt that a couple of the boys had written some lyrics about life as a young person in Graz. They really seemed to enjoy expressing themselves in this way.
The next day saw the crew followed Kerstin and Alex on their daily street work in the city of Graz (it was also a nice chance to see a bit of the city centre!) This was followed by filming at a homeless shelter (which is another strand of Caritas). The team there kindly showed us around and it seemed to bring up some interesting research for Mike and the rest of the Newman team! Back at Caritas Jugenstreetwork, some of the young people were learning new editing skills using Final Cut Pro to put together a rough cut of their film which they had stated when Ana and Tim first visited at the end of June!
The last day of the trip, which is also when the sun decided to sun as if it was the middle of summer, we followed the crew as they met an organisation called TagWerk, who help to get young people (who are considered NEET, homeless or are recovering addicts) back to work by providing them with practical skills in making bags, clothes, umbrellas etc to sell. Apparently the bags that TagWerk make are extremely popular with the youth of Graz! We saw lots of young people at work behind the sewing machine in amongst different kinds of materials, buttons and sequins. The whole place really did have a 'textile workshop' vibe about it!
We won't be back in Graz until January 2012 for a conference being held by the project leaders at Newman University but we do look forward to being back there then!
Check out the photos..
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