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“WHAT’S NEWS AT CARETAKERS”
The Caretakers Cottage Newsletter
Vol. 2, Issue 1 — April 2015
#Hashtags, ☺Emojis & Little Round
Blue Stickers
15 April, 2015
Dovi Seldowitz
I
n the age of SMS emojis, Facebook status updates, Twitter tweets and Instagram hashtags, it has become critical
for young people worldwide to be able to communicate in brief, snippet-sized bits of information. It is the sign of
the newcomer to any type of social media to miss the "rules" of
the platform (e.g. abbreviate freely, don't use all caps and never
exceed the platform's character limit, to name but a few). It is by
these unwritten laws of the internet that separates good content “Getting information off the Internet is
from bad, the trending from irrelevant, the viral from spammy.
A
t Caretakers Cottage, our focus has long been to communicate with young people in crisis in straightforward and relatable terms; young people deserve to understand what their
rights are and the services available to them without bogging
them down with cryptic, bureaucratic jargon. Caretakers insists
that young people are able to learn to make the right choices in
life when they receive a clear idea of where their life is headed
and strong moral support for taking steps in the direction to better their lives.
like taking a drink from a fire hydrant...”
- Mitchell Kapor
T
he staff at Caretakers have taken particular attention to
make sure young people are able to access information on
services available to them. In the weeks preceding this year's
National Youth Week and the "Culturefest" event in Maroubra
Beach this past weekend, Caretakers sought a professional
graphic artist willing to volunteer his or her time designing new
informational flyers for Caretakers' services. The general consensus of the Caretakers staff was that the existing flyers were
mostly aimed at adults; while the informational materials included a wealth of information on the types of service and level of
care provided to young people at Caretakers Cottage, these particular flyers design might not have an engaging effect on a
younger audience.
O
The Caretakers Tent at CULTUREFEST
ur call was answered by an absolutely amazingly talented
LIVE ART: Henna tattoo in progress
young woman, Chere De Koh. Chere had studied graphic
design and had begun working professionally as a graphic artist
a few years ago. Chere spotted our ad requesting a designer willing to work (pro bono) for an organisation helping
young people in crisis, and graciously offered her time to speedily design a flyer that would simultaneously be aesthetically pleasing and contain all relevant information on Caretakers' services, including Options Semi-Independent
Housing, our Early Intervention Program (partnering with the Ted Noffs
Foundation) and Entity Out of Home Care programs. Chere worked super
quick to send us the flyer design, and using a local print shop in Bondi
(yes, we support local small businesses and we think you should too),
Caretakers was able to print our newest round of flyers just in time for
National Youth Week and featured at our information booth at Culturefest
2015 at Maroubra Beach, which, by the way, also featured our very own
henna tattoo artist!!! The staff and kids at Caretakers all agreed we had
taken a major step forward, designing flyers with young people in mind,
full of key service information, all in an aesthetically pleasing format.
I
t is at this stage of events where the additional insight of a young person helped us at Caretakers take this matter to a whole new level.
When one of our residents got wind of our plans for new flyers, she politely informed us of the reality marketing to young people: most young
people will simply discard any organisation's flyer regardless of its design, superb or not. At best, they will hold on to it somehow, but will
more likely misplace it once they get home. Needless to say, when that
kid needs our service information, the flyer will be nowhere to be seen.
Her solution, print some stickers. Kids love stickers and will welcome a
nice looking sticker given to them by a friendly youth worker at the information booth.
HOT OFF THE PRESS: Our New Flyer
that both standard marketing practices as well as the more
J udging
youthfully-driven, innovative ideas are fair game, we at Caretakers decided to have a go at printing stickers. Our designer Chere whipped up a
great design, and while we were not able to find a printer that could print a
rush batch of stickers before this year's Culturefest (offset printing always UPDATE: Our stickers arrived today!
takes a little longer), newly designed Caretakers stickers will be arriving
to us by post any day now. So keep your eyes peeled for those little round blue stickers at the close of this year's National Youth Week, and be sure to call Caretakers to find out how to help young people in crisis.
Update: Our stickers arrived today!!!
Click here to see more amazing design work by the amazing Chere.
Click here to see more henna artwork work by the talented Bec.
Caretakers Cottage Inc.
96 Bondi Road
Bondi NSW 2026
Visit us on the web:
www.caretkaers.org.au
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