by Fiona Stack, General Manager, Radio Kerry
The Hidden Light was a special project. It came from a chance meeting I had with Child and Adolescence Psychotherapist Edel Lawlor at a Business Leaders dinner in Kerry. Edel has her own practice, but also works with the CLIMB (Children’s Lives Involve Moments of Bravery) project at Recovery Haven cancer support services. She is a big advocate of play therapy, and a conversation began about how the Kingdom of Kerry is ready-made for its own fairytale.
Radio Kerry wanted to use the magic of radio to create a timeless story that would help any child facing a challenge, be that bullying, anxiety, a bereavement, health or neurodiverse challenges, or family breakup. So, who better to ask to help than children who had themselves faced challenges?
Working with the very creative students on the Radio Kerry/Kerry College course on Journalism, Podcasting and Radio, The Hidden Light took on a magic more that than anybody expected.
Together with the children, Edel and the students wrote, acted in and recorded the story and the sound effects from locations throughout Kerry in May 2024. Edel assisted in identifying some young people who would be willing to share their experiences and provided training for the Radio Kerry students in appropriate questioning.
Together they worked to identify the themes and messages. Examples include meeting a giant who shrinks when the children stand up to it. Fiadh, who is six, has an autistic brother but she told us that she doesn’t see him as being ‘non-verbal’, she just believes he communicates differently so the story has a bird who communicates with her.
The children’s journey is interspersed with some of Kerry’s most infamous and majestic creatures, and locations the children have heard of and will know in their own community. They must work together to find clues around Kerry leading them to The Hidden Light, which turns out to be something they mightn’t have been expecting.
The story includes messages about difference, inner strength, the importance of accepting help from others, that they are not on their own, and some gentle but wise learnings for young and old.
When the project was ready to air, the young participants and some of the Radio Kerry/Kerry College students spoke on our Kerry Today programme about the process, and invited everyone to listen in to the piece which was then broadcast.
We had contacted primary schools in Kerry in advance and they were invited to listen in live to the broadcast. We had also promoted it on air. Some students from the Radio Kerry course listened in live with children in a primary school in Tralee and linked back into Kerry Today with their immediate reactions. A webpage was created on the Radio Kerry website to capture other feedback and allow children and adults share other advice. Radio Kerry also contacted teacher unions, TUSLA and children’s charities to make them aware that we are happy for any group to use the story.
The Hidden Light remains available on the Radio Kerry website www.radiokerry.ie/thehiddenlight for any family or group to help a child going through any kind of a challenge. Our original aim was that if it even helped one child it would be worth doing, so please feel free to share and use.
This project is a wonderful example of how the development of media literacy skills – in this case how to structure, record and edit stories – can have a real-life, immediate and very positive benefit.
