WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM | SEPTEMBER 3 - 9, 2021 | 31
LAST CALL
Liza French and Frankie Franco of ‘WooStories’ Veer Mudambi Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
The “WooStories” podcast, developed to provide Worcester’s youth with a voice during the pandemic, turned one year old last month. Developed by the Division of Youth Opportunities, “WooStories” operates on a seasonal basis, with a diff erent group of kids for summer, fall and spring programs. Producer Liza French and co-host Frankie Franco sat down with Last Call to discuss how the program has grown and plans for the future. “WooStories” is available on Spotify and Google Podcasts. How was this set up? What did you make podcasts about? Liza French: This past school year, we had a group of about six to seven fi fth-graders who we called the dream team, they were a podcast club. The fi rst series was about how to create a tool kit for youth to make podcasts at home during the pandemic. We got together three times a week and we discussed what they wanted to make podcasts about. Chose topics they wanted to know more about, like COVID, climate change and food justice. Since we were virtual with the dream team and meeting over Zoom, we used the record function to use the audio for the podcast. We would make it clear when it was a recording session and set up guidelines beforehand on expectations of behavior. Frankie Franco: I actually heard that this series helped somebody start their own podcast. How did you pick which kids would participate? LF: The podcast is kind of within the division of youth opportunities. We have the ability to touch upon the many programs that the DYO holds. So we reached out to the staff of program coordinators through Recreation Worcester, to see who would be interested and used a permission form. Just wanted to give anyone who was interested a platform. No real application process, just if you’re a youth involved with DYO or know about DYO. FF: “WooStories” is meant to capture the stories that don’t get captured. For youth to share their stories during the
Frankie Franco and Liza French run the “WooStories” podcast, developed to provide Worcester’s youth with a voice during the pandemic. ASHLEY GREEN/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
pandemic with the world as well as youth workers to discuss the support they need and the support they don’t receive. Where did the idea for this come from? FF: A lot of programs weren’t able to operate during the pandemic so youth lost that support. We thought they needed a platform to express certain things, to get these things out of their head, out of their heart. LF: Something that a lot of people working with youth in any way were struggling with, was trying to make virtual learning and virtual programming meaningful rather than a random Zoom call with multiple people participating in. “WooStories” was a way to take control of a situation that was otherwise uncontrollable. Part of the vision for when we started “WooStories” is that it
would be like a love letter to the city of Worcester. My hope is anyone who listens to the podcast feels like they can have ownership over the podcast in their own way and use it to amplify their story. We’re setting up opportunities for people to get involved but I hope that if anyone wants to reach out to us with a youth or youth centered story, we could be someone to help you tell that story. We wanted to make the whole virtual situation more meaningful and more engaging. How has “WooStories” changed over the last year? LF: I think it’s in a constant state of development based on new ideas at the DYO and from the youth themselves. And like Frankie said, we’ve seen the opportunity to highlight other youth programs and spread the word about the DYO’s diff erent projects.
FF: “WooStories” aligns with the mission of DYO, where we’re always fl exible and meet the community and youth where they’re at. It’s changing in a way where it’s growing and we see the vision of where it could be. Plans for the future? LF: We are hoping to bring in older youth — high school age — to contribute to the podcast and work with them to develop their own stories. We want to help support them to create those stories. FF: We’re also looking for youth who have or want to learn certain media tech skills for opportunities in working with DYO for their youth media team. What kind of stories have you heard — any common threads? Favorite story? LF: My favorite episode was when one of the kids was really interested in coding. He was just so incredibly smart but he really had one focus that he was really interested in but he didn’t have a chance to talk about it with people. So he made a workshop to explain to other youth why it’s so important to him. We also had some very inspiring episodes about following your dreams and facing your fears and what it means to have dreams and fears. It’s very inspiring to hear such wisdom from 9- to 10-yearolds. If you give youth the chance to talk about what’s important to them, often you have incredible topics like that. And the youth worker series? FF: I was a co-host and we interviewed diff erent youth workers. Each episode had it’s own theme. Those who worked at schools, youth organizations and those who worked with youth on their personal time. Mentors can guide you to who you are today and those mentors don’t get highlighted enough. Each person names at least somebody who helped them along their journey. The second thing we learned was it takes a lot of selfcare to not get burned out from working with youth. That’s something they don’t teach you, that you need to take care of your mental health, even if you’re passionate about working with youth. You want to do the most you can to help others, but you have to take care of yourself fi rst. If you’re not all right then the work is not right.
