By CHRISTINE CHEAH
alltherage@thestar.com.my

In 1993, The Star organised its first ever young journalist programme as a way to give back to the community. There were just nine participants, and they would gather every month at the The Star’s office to learn all the skills they needed to be a journalist.

After six months, the nine 16-year-olds published their very own pullout in The Star. By then, they had already given themselves a name, the BRATs – Bright, Roving, Annoying Teens.

It would prove to be the start of a truly remarkable run of workshops held every year. In 1995, the programme grew to its current format, with three four-day workshops a year – each held in a different city and with 40 new participants.

“Even in 1998, during the economic crisis, we forced ourselves to organise one workshop, which we did at our old office in Section 13, Petaling Jaya,” said Tan Ju Eng, one of the founders of the programme and the current senior executive producer of SwtichUp.TV (The Star’s online TV channel).

And now, the BRATs will be back for its 20th year, continuing a fine tradition that has already produced many professional journalists currently in the industry.

You might even be familiar with some of their names, because their bylines appear regularly in The Star – Teh Eng Hock, Sharmilla Ganesan, Jo Timbuong, Fiona Ho and Michelle Tam were all products of the BRATs programme.

Some are now columnists for The Star, such as Niki Cheong, Xandria Ooi and David Lian.

“Everyone at the time was saying that young people only knew how to lepak or run away from home,” said Tan. “What we wanted to do was say ‘hey, listen to them!’ Plain and simple.”

For Tan, the programme is also unique because it provides opportunities to teenagers who don’t always get that chance to shine.

“We made it a point to select those who weren’t straight-A students, or presidents of their Rotaract club,” she said.

And even though it is essentially a journalism programme, Tan believes the skills you learn at BRATs can benefit you in so many ways beyond journalism.

One participant, she recalls, a renowned pharmacist in Britain, once emailed her saying she thinks about the BRATs every time she goes on stage to give a talk, because it was the programme that gave her the confidence to speak up.

“Let’s face it, you can’t teach someone to write in three days,” said Tan. “What we can really do is open their minds and plant the seed to help them think differently, to teach them to listen, and to stand up.”

* Want to join the BRATs? Log on to facebook.com/starbrats to apply! Deadline for applications is February 22.
BRATs 2013 is organised by R.AGE, and supported by ExxonMobil.