Description: Hi8us Projects was the lead partner in Inclusion Through Media (ITM), a £6.5m EC-funded Equal development partnership. Many ITM projects which were delivered by Hi8us took the form of partnerships with external organisations such as universities, independent production companies and sector support agencies.

Our aims, values and programme plan were:

• To facilitate the production of innovative, creative film, video and digital media made by talented young people from a wide range of backgrounds, who have not necessarily achieved their potential through mainstream education and training. Uniquely, our participants are able to work side-by-side with experienced professionals, a practice which results in high quality, diverse stories, created by those best placed to tell them.

• Our key ambition was to demonstrate that working through participatory media with excluded and disadvantaged people actively helps to combat social exclusion by giving them a chance to make their voices heard. It also enables some of our most creative young people to access the industry through ‘non-traditional’ routes, enriching the talent pool of the UK’s world-class audio-visual industry. We wanted to showcase this evidence to convince policy-makers and employers that our model works, and that the social and economic benefits go hand-in-hand.