Emmanuel Jay from Sudan

Element - a new strand on global issues catering for the growing youth audience around the world - was launched on 12th March on MTV European. 

The five minute Element programmes aim to bring ‘big picture’ issues - climate change, poverty, discrimination - to MTV viewers in 25 countries through exceptional stories from exceptional young people.

The series opens with the story of Emmanuel Jal who was using AK47s by the time he was eight. Once a child soldier in Sudan, he’s now an internationally acclaimed performer who uses his music to inspire fellow refugees and promote global disarmament.

Element also introduces Nigerian sisters Ifie and Tina - who drive each other crazy, but are united in the campaign against the oil industry’s devastation in the Niger Delta. And it tells the story of Craig, who at the age of 12 started the world’s largest network of young people, and is now helping to rebuild Sri Lankan schools destroyed by the 2005 tsunami.

The Element series was developed and produced by new, non–profit initiative The Element Partnership in co-operation with the One World Broadcasting Trust (OWBT), TVE, Internews, and is part of TVE and OWBT’s groundbreaking, two year ‘MDGs in Focus’ project.  Blending high-end trailers and graphics from some of London’s most talented editors and commercials directors, the Element stories are told against the backdrop of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the internationally agreed goals to halve poverty by 2015.

Element also launched a website where the the episodes will be uploaded weekly:

www.element-tv.net

Ifie from Nigeria

Madan from India

Monica from Peru