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For the last six months Emma McDonald has been working on Blast, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ youth project which delivers free creative workshops for teens all over the UK and Northern Ireland. As the regional Events Organiser for workshop tours in Scotland, we asked her to share some of her experiences and highlight some of the content produced by Scotland's creative young talent at the events in Ayr and Perth.

For the first few months after creating the workshop schedule, I worked in close partnership with local Ayrshire and Perthshire councils and the arts project to reach the intended teen audience. With several marketing and promotional activities rolled out, both myself and my team of work experience crew worked really hard at engaging with the teens of each town.

Our hard work paid off and both events were packed full of 13-19 year olds. Some were shy and reluctant, so needed just that extra wee push to get their creative juices flowing. And some were just bursting with creative energy - they could have given some media experts a good run for their money.

It was a fantastic feeling seeing all the workshops come to life, having spent months tweaking the arrangements on bits of paper, to then watch young talent actually make their radio show, write their first song, turn humans into zombies through special effects make-up or write a screenplay; made my job overwhelmingly worthwhile - on several occasions I felt like a proud mum!

We were much impressed by one enthusiastic group of teens who currently run the charity station, travelling all the way down to London to take part in radio workshop as the Scottish radio workshops were full. Such enthusiasm was rewarded with an invitation to Perth for a whole workshop dedicated to them to run their own live radio show. Their presence on the tours was simply fantastic, a very creative and professional crowd for such a young age - well done Ricky!

Here is some content produced on the workshop tour in Ayr and Perth.

Perth teens make a film in a day...

Students in Ayr made this podcast during a radio production workshop...

Right from the beginning I knew that Blast was going to be great fun to work on. From the long days, the masses amount of call sheets, to the rain on the days, it's been challenging and hard work but hey, that's life and that's Blast. And it's definitely been worth it. I have learned so much about myself and about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ but most importantly I have learned how to deal with such a challenging audience. And to never underestimate the highly creative minds of teenagers, as well as their wicked sense of humour!

This is Blast's last year as a ´óÏó´«Ã½ project; I'm simply chuffed to have been a part of it. It's been... awesome.