The Story of Digital Voice: Olwyn Hocking
To celebrate our fifteenth year, we’ve been celebrating the brilliant team of freelancers who make Digital Voice the organisation it is today. This final article brings us full circle in a catch up with co-founder Olwyn Hocking.
A common theme amongst the freelancers I’ve interviewed, is the sheer breadth of experience they bring to the table; Olwyn is no exception. After studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University, Olwyn completed an apprenticeship at a newspaper to gain her journalism qualifications. She then moved to BBC broadcast journalism (radio, websites, TV) where she and her teams won awards for coverage ranging from the Hillsborough disaster to Everest record-breaking. A move to ITV Tyne Tees brought her to the North East (highlights included coverage of the Millennium Bridge arrival), and a switch to become a freelance proofreader/editor resulted in crossing the border to work at the Scottish Parliament. So where in this exciting career timeline does Digital Voice appear? As with many of us freelancers, it starts with meeting co-founder and now Managing Director, Julie Nicholson.
“Julie and I had both been active volunteers for years, and fortunately were brought together by wonderful “volunteer matchmaker” Cath Ross who worked for Gateshead Council. Julie had fantastic community involvement experience and contacts, and a huge drive to help people develop media skills, have a voice and make a difference, for themselves and their area. We fitted together like two pieces of a jigsaw - I love using media in all forms to help people often excluded from sharing communication, and the growing “digital divide” was making that barrier even harder to cross.”
And thus Digital Voice was born.
“The very first project we worked on was for a community group Julie had set up with local young people called Ultimate Youth. We ended up doing a survey about their local area and the improvements they’d like to see – a big report was presented to Gateshead Council and they shared their views in a video called “msg frm Swalwell”. Digital Voice emerged from that, because the demand for our help with other groups was way more than we could do as volunteers. Julie had the great idea of creating a social enterprise so that funding could be won to bring in other workers and volunteers who shared our goals and had the right skills to help groups and individuals.”
In these early days, as is the case for many new enterprises, Julie and Olwyn’s roles covered just about everything,
“Julie and I did all the organising, fundraising and nitty gritty of planning each project so that it would deliver the results that the participants wanted to achieve – and hopefully give them a great experience along the way.”
Now, the team is around twenty people and the organisation continues to grow. Olwyn is less hands-on now yet still an integral part in her governance role and as company secretary.
Since its inception the organisation has worked with over 6000 participants, I asked Olwyn if she can pinpoint what makes Digital Voice so special:
“It’s a joy to have a media adventure with participants who bring experiences based on varied ages, abilities, backgrounds, outlooks, from all around the North East (and sometimes link-ups around the world). Accuracy, honesty, open-mindedness – these are all foundations of a healthier, happier society, and everything we can all do to combat lazy stereotyping, innocent misunderstandings or deliberate misleading helps truths and insights to be revealed and shared. Digital Voice does this exceptionally well through its brilliant DigitalMe projects. It is so worthwhile to feel the team has played a small part in helping make the world a better place.”
As Digital Voice enters its sixteenth year with more staff and more projects than ever before, this ethos is still at its heart of the organisation created by Julie and Olwyn:
“Everyone has special unique stories and messages, and sharing them enriches all our lives.”
Long may it continue.
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