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WYEP FreeZone for Teens


The summer of 2007 WYEP kicked off its first-ever workshop series aimed at teaching high school students about radio production. Under the name WYEP FreeZone, the free series invited ten students from city schools to the WYEP Community Broadcast Center every Wednesday afternoon to get the scoop on making great radio.

The participants learned how to speak with confidence into a microphone, use recording equipment, and sharpen their radio journalism skills by interviewing their friends and family. By the end of the summer, we had several student-created audio essays that were insightful, funny, inquisitive and moving.

FreeZone is free and open to Pittsburgh city youth ages 12–18. Transportation to and from the WYEP Community Broadcast Center on the South Side must be arranged by the participant. To find out more about the next round of FreeZone or to sign up, please call our Director of Education & Community Engagement at 412-381-9131.

Track 1:

FreeZone Correspondent Demo featuring Denise & Crystal
From the Sahara desert to outer space, WYEP FreeZone teen correspondents try their hands at special effects for radio.

listen now (6 min.)

Track 2:

Shena's Piece
When she was 10, Penn Hills teenager Shena witnessed her mother Melinda’s arrest for drug abuse. Shena and her siblings were sent to live with an aunt, who also succumbed to addiction. Listen as Shena interviews Melinda about her arrest, foster care, the power of family, and how it all turned out in the end.

listen now (10 min.)



"What would you like American students to know about you?": WYEP & the Murals Program

Imagine packing up all your belongings and moving across the ocean to a new country. Maybe you left your homeland because of civil war. Maybe there was no more water in your town. Maybe part of your family had to stay behind. left: WYEP’s Stephan Bontrager listens as Murals students Hussein and Kausar take turns interviewing one another.

During the past month, WYEP Education & Outreach traveled to Arsenal Middle School in Lawrenceville to work with refugee students involved in the Murals program. Developed by the MGR Foundation, Murals uses visual arts, drama, music, dance and spoken word to engage at-risk youth with positive choices and constructive alternatives.

WYEP Education & Outreach was on hand to teach the students how to interview one another using portable equipment. The students recorded the stories of their homelands and journeys to the United States.

Listen to one of their pieces now!