Socioeconomic gaps – a TV series will change this!

A group of high-school students taking part in the Summer Youth University at Tel Aviv University have an idea how to use the media to deal with pressing socioeconomic gaps.

Here is what they say:

“Teens in Israel experience with socio-economic gaps which also cause alienation and differences in areas such as culture, place of residence, education and more. As part of our learning about this issue, we asked our project members, who represent youth from various communities and sectors in Israel’s geographic periphery, to take a survey that examined parameters such as number of rooms in the home, number of siblings, parental education and more. We found, for example, that about 60% of fathers of the students are lacking academic education, and that most of us live in cities, which has attracted our attention because living in the city is generally considered cheaper in Israel than living in the villages. To cope with this problem, we propose to create a documentary series in the style of “vlog” (video blog) in which we represent youth from different communities with different lifestyles. Each chapter will deal with a different topic. In this way, we will gain more awareness of the differences and gaps. The goal is to show how big and significant the differences between teens are.

In addition, at the end of each chapter, telephone numbers of relevant organizations and will appear. Also, the revenues from the series, if any, will contribute to the same goal.

We want to use this medium because of its power: there is a different between hearing about a hungry child in Africa, then seeing it. And since our country is very small – to see something happening next to you has an even greater impact!“