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Entries for April 2005
Mobile Phones Used To Battle Youth Depression
(AUS) Mobile phones are to be used in a 400 person study to determine how youth depression starts and develops. The researchers hope to use the results to create a mobile phone program to act as an early warning system for at-risk young people. Capitalising on teenagers' favourite accessory,…
Don't Be Evil
(US) Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, each worth about $8 billion, might challenge convention and employ a capitalist approach to charitable donations. The company that is at the forefront of innovation and bold moves already gives free advertising to hundreds of non-profits focused on poverty, human rights,…
Making Waves
(UK) The new charity WaveMakers, launched last November, announced this week 10 youth projects will receive its first awards which recognises young people who are taking the initiative to address issues they find important,such as bullying, smoking, gun crime and healthy living. Each group brought its own approach to…
Edun, Bono And Ali Hewson
(UK) Looking at the Phatgnat visitors stats the posts regarding Bono's ethical clothing label, Edun, has been getting a fair number of hits—so we thought this would be of interest: Project is a unisexlifestyle title that's all about living green and saving the planet instyle. The first issue's got an…
Project Fox
(DK) Project FOX, is an event in Copenhagen promoting the newly released Volkswagen Fox. For the occasion they created a hotel, a club, and a studio all in downtown Copenhagen. For the hotel they took an already pre-existing hotel, and combined the talent of 21 artists to re-design the…
Bad News Is Good News
(US) Phatgnat was interested to read the highlights of the 1st Annual Business Ethics Summit 'Corporate Scandals, Corporate Responsibility and the Media: Who Should We Believe?' held on April 21st in New York City and hosted by Business Ethics Magazine. Three separate articles by Peter Asmus were distributed through the…
Private Contracts Means Unhealthy School Meals
(UK) Continuing the on-going debate on unhealthy school meals this recent Guardian article exposes the fact that most schools are tied into 25 year private contracts with catering companies. Therefore, any new government pledges to improve school meals will be impossible to embrace. Guardian article link….
Blogger/Reporter Needed
Is anyone attending the 'ShowComotion Children's Media Conference', 8 & 9 July 2005 Showroom Cinema, Sheffield UK? ShowComotion website link. If so do you want to blog/report on behalf of Phatgnat? Send us an email if you are interested……
UK Government Ban Junk Food Ads
(UK) Announced in the new White Paper on public health, the UK government are planning on banning any 'junk' food ads on television showing before the 9pm watershed. Moves by brands such as McDonald's, Kraft and PepsiCo to reduce levels of fat, salt and sugar in products or offer…
Kids Create Town
How do you get a group of schoolchildren to learn about urban planning issues? Team up with the makers of Sim City, and get them specially-adapt a version of their computer game. Fair View Junior School, in Gillingham, Kent, used the education-by-computer-game as part of a Medway Children's University…
And The Winners Are…
(UK) Young People Now's first Positive Images Awards are aimed to celebrate balanced media coverage of young people. As a general election draws closer, some candidates are using the fear of young people as a campaigning tool. This makes it even more important for the media to provide a…
We Don't Hate Football…
(UK) Phatgnat has discussed before the negative effects of footballers actions and how the sponsors of the game should be using the leverage they have to effect changes—here and here. The recent incident between Newcastle United midfielders Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer, who ended up brawling on the pitch…
Phatgnat Newsletter #14 (20 Apr 05)
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The Phatgnat Fortnightly Challenge #2
'The Phatgnat Fortnightly Challenge' has been developed to demonstrate the services of Phatgnat and to illustrate how brands and companies can create high-profile youth projects which also satisfies public sectors aims and objectives. If you have any suggestions for brands or causes that you would like to see featured…
Personal Best Challenge Parks
(UK) UPDATE: The London office of Weber Shandwick emailed Phatgnat keen to inform us about Personal Best Challenge Parks (PBCP)—a Youth Sport Trust initiative funded by Coca-Cola. It is a school sport initiative that involves the transformation of a secondary school playground (a grown-up version of the RBS's scheme…
The Hideout
(UK) Children who suffer domestic violence will be able to turn to a new website launched today. The Hideout will give help and advice to children who experience violence at home. Launched by singer Will Young and the charity Women's Aid, the site has special security features so youngsters…
Football Outreach
(UK) With a £163,000 grant from the Football Association, Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club have set up a project to engage vulnerable young people in their area. Working with the local police, youth support services, youth offending teams and the council the project aims to target 1,500 targeted…
CSR Video-Makers
The Media Trust recently launched its Corporate Social Responsibility initiative and are seeking colloboration with consultancy companies and coporate clients. They are seeking to work with corporate clients to produce films specifically demonstrating CSR issues within the corporate environment. These films can be used as unique opportunities to convey issues…
Surfers Raise £10,000 For Tsunami Victims
(UK) Follow-up story to this previous post….
Giving It Away
The latest post over at Ray Podders GrowBlog entitled Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now! discusses the positive strategy of giving something away if you're a brand: 'The strategic part is creating value with the new revenue channels the 'FREE' creates. Google gave search away for…
Video Game Raises Hunger Issue
(WORLD) The UN has launched a video game which aims to teach young people about hunger. Food Force is the brainchild of the World Food Programme (WFP), which last year fed more than 100 million people. The UN body seeks to capitalise on the popularity of video games to…
Rooney For Prime Minister
(UK) In a recent poll of 1,000 pupils, Manchester United player Wayne Rooney topped the bill as favourite to take over from Tony Blair as the nation's prime minister. Which makes my point about football, made here and here, an issue that needs to be tackled. Guardian article….
Nike Opens Up
(WORLD) In Nike's 'FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report' is a bold attempt from the company to develop new levels of transparency with its disclosure of its supply chain (more about this in the Financial Times article). However, Phatgnat was more interested in Community Investment chapter of the report. Committing 3%…
Ban Avertising Or Make A Game Out Of It?
(UK) Sustain is a campaign group who wants to see an outright ban on advertising 'fast-food' to kids. The group, has put together a Children's Food Bill which among other things is demanding a total ban on junk food advertising across all mediums. 'When we started this campaign it was…
Edun: Bono et al Socially Responsible Clothing—UPDATE
(WORLD) Well, after Phatgnats previous posts about Bono's ethical clothing company here and here we see this morning that the Edun site is now live—here. The site tells us the Edun brand has '4 Respects': Resect for the people who make our product; Respect for the place where we make…
The Economist Debate on CSR
(UK) The Economist magazine's critical feature on CSR titled, 'The Good Company: A Skeptical Look at Corporate Social Responsibility' (need premium reg. for access), generated one of the biggest postbags on any issue with 95% being against the article. Due to this, an open debate was held at the…
The Technological Leveller
(World) Phatgnat has known about this initiative for some time now but it seems to be gathering pace—$100 laptops are being developed by the MIT Media Lab and their partners (who include AMD, Google and News Corp.) to be used as a tool to educate the worlds children and…
'Make Space' Campaign
(UK) This parternship has still yet to catch the attention of mainstream media, which is a pity because it's a bold initiative. The 'Make Space' campaign aims to create places to go and things to do for teenagers. Led by 4Children and supported with £3million funding from the Nestle…
National Literacy Strategy Criticised
(UK) Weeks after the launch of the 'Premier League Reading Stars' which Phatgnat blogged about here—the Education and Skills Select Committee has said that the number of 11 year olds unable to read and write properly is 'unacceptably high'. They have called on the government to review its National…
Northumbria Police Rule
(UK) Whilst trying to contact the Northumbrian Police to get further information about my previous post Phatgnat came across another initiative worthy of a mention. More than 1,700 13-17 year olds attended the sold-out launch of the Northumbria Police 'Wipeout' criminal damage campaign. The 'Sweet' club night was a…
Video Club To Curb Disorder
(UK) Police, the community and a local business in Wearside, Sunderland have developed a video club to try and get the local young people off the streets. A DVD player and large screen will be set up at Hetton Centre, Welfare Road, with DVDs supplied by local video store to…
The Phatgnat Fortnightly Challenge #1
'The Phatgnat Fortnightly Challenge' has been developed to demonstrate the services of Phatgnat and to illustrate how brands and companies (large and small) can create high-profile youth projects which also satisfies public sectors aims and objectives. To coincide with Phatgnat's fortnightly newsletters, we will briefly outline a youth project…
Phatgnat Newsletter #13 (6 April 05)
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TV Democracy
(US) Al Gore has announced the launch of Current TV, a youth channel, in part, made by its viewers. Set for launch in August it will show 15-second to five-minute 'pods' on subjects from fashion to finance plus Google's search headlines. Its website will also feature editing software and…
Dancing Away Obesity
(US) The Dance Dance Revolution video game is being used by The West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency to tackle obesity in children and young people. Konami Digital Entertainment America, which distributes the Japanese game in the United States, knows of no other state or insurance agency using the…
Tsunami Surf Relief
(UK) Tsunami Surf Relief UK was set up by concerned surfers in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. We represent the UK's surfing community and are helping surfers, surf clubs and surf businesses to give something back to devastated areas of Asia. Their objective is: To relieve…
Impact Of Healthy School Meals Campaign
(UK) The impact of the 'Feed Me Better' campaign by Jamie Oliver ensured a £280million pledge by the government, however, the campaign is now impacting on those catering firms who currently supply the school meals. Scholarist is the food service giant Compass Group's education arm, currently supplying school meals to…
Footballers Help To Boost Literacy
(UK) With Phatgnat's rant about footballers being bad for kids and the game as a whole needing a lot more pressure to change from its commercial sponsors, we're happy to read about the following positive scheme: 'Premier League Reading Stars' is a joint initiative with the National Literacy Trust…
UK Government Launches International CSR Framework
(UK) MP Nigel Griffiths has launched the UK's government International Framework on Corporate Social Responsibility. The CSR Minister said, 'the UK is seen as leading the way internationally on CSR and I want to make sure that we continue to add to the policy debate. The framework gives a clear…
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