Teenager! - Kazakhstan

Two thousand copies of the 24-page Teenager! newspaper are distributed on a monthly basis to newspaper booths, embassies, companies, shops, schools, and colleges - mostly in the city of Almaty. Online versions of the paper, which is published in the Russian language (with one typed page in English), are available on the Teenager! site. Young people produce the content of the issues, which provide information about progressive projects and talented persons; world and city news for teenagers; details about organisations that provide children and teenagers with opportunities for personal and civic development; and information about youth rights, health, and economic self-sufficiency. In addition, the creative work of youth, including poetry, stories, and pictures, is featured. The young publishers keep in touch with readers by distributing and collecting surveys and conducting various press conferences.

Center for Children Defense founded the newspaper; a pilot version of this newspaper was produced in December 1999, followed by a brief period in which publishers gained experience by distributing free Xeroxed newspapers in the Almaty streets. A typographical edition followed; this enabled an improvement in the paper's form and content that organisers say has made the paper more interesting, modern, and creative. As of 2004, the new owner of the paper will be Peacebuilding Public Association.

In order to strengthen their skills and collaborate with peers, the group of young people who create Teenager! participate in journalistic trainings, seminars, conferences, festivals, and competitions. For example, the youth participated in a forum called "the Ring of Eurasia (Leninogorsk, Kazakhstan) and in an international festival called "Volga's meeting" (Russia). In partnership with Junior Achievement and with the support of the Chevron Texaco Company, Teenager! organised and conducted a summer training session for young publishers called "Journalism is my business!". The session focussed on educating teenagers in the fundamentals of professional journalism, design of printed mass media, technologies for effective communication, advertising strategies, the art of marketing, and the fundamentals of business and management. As a follow-up to this session, the young publishers produced a collection of methodological materials for youth media makers.

The youth also participate in civic projects in an effort to "give back" to the community. For example, with the support of the regional ecological centre of Central Asia, the young publishers engaged in "Almaty - clean city". This project was aimed at attracting of the attention of citizens to the problem of littering and changing the ecological consciousness of society.

Future plans include getting acquainted with radio and TV broadcasting systems, improving the newspaper's design and quality, and helping the young journalists get their work published in other youth magazines and newspapers.

Youth, Media Development.

Organisers explain that Kazakhstan is a young state; civil society is undergoing a process of development here. This, they say, is a good platform for the education of new generation of media makers that will constitute a free, independent mass media. However, they claim that there are few opportunities for teenagers to gain professional journalism skills. They say that, beyond the absence of state support, there is no solid financial basis for development in this area, and an inability to create it. They attribute the demise of promising youth-focussed newspapers including "Window" (Semipalatinsk) and "Tomorrow" (Ust Kamenogorsk) to this financial situation.

As part of the changes in Kazakhstan in the past decade, they explain, teenagers are no longer satisfied with being passive consumers of information and objects of manipulation. Members of the younger generation, they say, aspire to express their opinions independently and to influence social processes.