About Us

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

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

What we do - Training

We deliver training courses (1 day, 2 day, week-long courses) that take place on-site within an organisation or community centre. For example, we've trained homeless people through CRISIS, people with mental health issues through the NHS and young people at risk through Catalyst Communities Housing Association. We've also trained staff from Oxfam, Unltd and Princes Trust.

Partnerships & Projects

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 presented with the Catalyst Communities award in July 2008 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 4000 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.

The name

The term 'on road' is a street-term commonly used in London to mean 'around' or 'out and about'. It's 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". So, there you go!