Community news is important – no one knows that more than the news team at BEST Disability Services.
Every Friday, a group of locals living with disabilities with a passion for acting, filming and video editing, get together to film a news program.
BEST Weekly News takes its audience through all of the week’s esssentials, whether it be an interview with a community leader, a funny joke, or a chat with the team’s sports correspondent.
The crew aims to cover it all. But more importantly, they’re always having fun.
Program coordinator at BEST, Sofia Guglieri said the program had been around since BEST started.
“We have a group of guys that really enjoy acting, filming and editing – they do everything in the program, from picking what clothes they wear, what the script is, what the subject is, all the filming and all the editing,” Ms Guglieri said.
Currently the team consists of six members, each with their own role.
There’s a filmer, an editor, a lead investigator, a gaming corespondent, a jokes master, a sports guru, and at one point there was a weatherman.
“We let the guys choose what they want to be and how they want to present the news channel,” Ms Guglieri said.
She said this was important as it helped boost their decision-making and social skills.
“They actually get together to listen to each others ideas, and to present their own ideas to different people,” she said.
Nowadays the crew specialises in bouncing ideas off one another in an attempt to create the best possible interview question, video transition, or funny joke.
“They have fun and enjoy it, which is what everything we do here at BEST is about, and for members to truly be themselves,” Ms Guglieri said.
A new partnership with Logan City Council has the news team producing a video series about what goes on inside council.
Ms Guglieri said members of the crew had taken a keen interest in the project, and enjoyed tasks like interviewing the mayor.
“I have noticed they know a lot more about the community – who is the mayor, what is he responsible for – because of the research they did before interviewing him,” she said.
“They know about the libraries now, and talk so proudly about the places they have been and the people they interviewed.
“They now know about the animal management centre, and they keep asking when we’re going back.”
Thanks to their work on the news channel, the group of young adults have developed “a sense of community”.
“It is a really cool skill that they have learned this year – to be part of a community and have a sense of belonging,” Ms Guglieri said.
The Logan City Council series will be avaliable on YouTube in the coming weeks via –Â lccqld.com/BEST-YouTube
