About Us

On Road Media was set up in 2005 to support marginalised groups and voluntary sector organisations to use social media.

This social enterprise was set up by Nathalie McDermott with the support of SSE (School for Social Entrepreneurs) and Unltd Levels 1 & 2 awards.

Our name

The term 'on road' has varied translations but it's a street term commonly used in London to mean 'around' or 'out and about'. It is used a lot in London prisons to refer to everything outside of jail, ie, "I'd never eat this on road" or "I always wear x on road". On Road Media's director, Nathalie, heard it a lot during her work in HMP Wandsworth and it's a good fit for us because we train people to record and share the reality of their lives & communities.

What we do

On Road Media currently delivers training courses (1 day, 2 day, week-long courses) that take place on-site within an organisation or community centre. For example, they have trained homeless people through CRISIS, people with mental health issues through the NHS and young people at risk through Catalyst Communities Housing Association. They have also trained staff from Oxfam, Unltd and Princes Trust.

We also deliver larger projects in partnership with other organisations. Example: www.savvychavvy.com, a social network set up by On Road Media (commissioned by Unltd and Media for Development, funded by Mediabox) for young Gypsies and Travellers in the UK, was recently (July 24th 2008) presented with the Catalyst Communities award by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Savvychavvy.com (‘chavvy’ being the Romany word for ‘child’) provides young people from the Gypsy community with a safe place to share stories, podcasts and blogs about their culture. There are now almost 3000 Travellers on the network; young people who experience racism on other social networking sites and therefore would not previously discuss culturally relevant issues and problems online.