SEEDS – Giving the youth a voice

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“THE youth don’t read,” has become a glaring issue for us in the print industry. How do we get out-and-about youngsters to sit down and read a newspaper? How do we compete with 24-hour information that anybody can access with a single swipe of their finger?

How do we make reading the news relevant to secondary school students, university students and young working adults?

We give them a voice. We give them a face. We let them tell us what matters to them through The Borneo Post’s new youth-oriented website going live today: SEEDS at seeds.theborneopost.com.

The idea for The Borneo Post SEEDS began about a year ago, first as an idea as a weekly print-publication, and then more recently as a website. We have five main landing pages which include: Focus (features and human interest stories), Camp’US’life (news, events, updates from educational institutions), YourSay (an agony aunt column), Lifestyles (Food and beverage, travel, reviews) and Pixels (where we publish pictures sent in by our readers).

 

Focus

We resurrected this name from a section in The Borneo Post’s discontinued weekly publication PostMag, as it is a title that seems to incorporate everything from most-talked about topics as whimsical as the Candy Crush mania, personalities or celebrities to current issues like bullying in schools, fuel-price hikes, drug abuse or events like January’s Bawani vs Sharifah Zahra Jobeen saga.

 

Camp’US’life

A section specifically about life on campus from both students and lecturers, where readers can get the news about programmes, new facilities, clubs and associations, ongoing research findings and projects, events and school highlights.

 

YourSay

An agony aunt column where people can input their personal problems anonymously with space for readers to offer their advice, or experiences.

There will be a list of useful numbers, including a list of helplines of vetted and reliable organisations available.

 

Lifestyle

For the weekend warrior in all of us, where people can read up on healthy lifestyles and activities, food and beverage and read up on what’s hot at the cinema, what to read or what to listen to in our reviews section.

 

Pixels

Never has photography been more prevalent than it is now since the advent of the smartphone. Send your photos in to us with your name and a caption for your photo and see it featured on this page.

With increased participation from readers, over time we will incorporate themes for the week, along with ‘like’ features that will enable the readers to vote for their favourite photo. Top-liked photos will be featured as ‘Photo of the Week’, ‘Photo of the Month’ and by the end of the year there will be a special exhibition where we award ‘Photo of the Year’ – so watch this space.

 

The most important element of SEEDS is creating a dialogue with our readers through the website’s comments as well as SEEDS’ Facebook page, twitter @Seeds_bp.

For information or enquiries about SEEDS or how readers can contribute, email us at [email protected].

Look forward to hearing from you!