CAROL JACOBS
Media Entrepreneur

Young people don't have dreams, they have visions of the future

Carol has always mentored people. Being part of a large yet loving family she had to know how to share, compromise and learn new skills and if it wasn't for her mother she would not have been able to accomplish all of what she has.

Carol comes from a family of 14 of which 12 are alive and is one of a twin. . Her parents came to England in the 50's from Jamaica. Carol is proud and grateful that she grew up in a very loving, strong and close knit family with good Christian morals, ethics and values. She has seen the impact these valuable attributes have had on her life and she hopes that she has transferred these down to her two children, Michaela 21, Suzkima 23 and to her grand-daughter, Venice who is 2 years old.

Carol went to Greenwich Park Girls School, then went onto Bromley College to do O'levels. During this time she fell pregnant with her first child. At this point she decided to re-train and she joined the "Project Full Employ" - a regeneration project which was set up to help provide skills for people within the community and here she did a Public Relations course.

Carol's first job in the industry was in distribution at an organisation called Cinema Of Women (COW). This organisation viewed films sent in to them and then distributed them to film festivals internationally. After a stint here, she went to work at the Royal Festival Hall as a telephonist/receptionist.

At the age of 23, Carol found herself pregnant with her second daughter Michaela. She now had two children under 4 to look after, with a very unsupportive partner and this proved to be the turning point in her life.- she decided to do something about it.

Carol moved onto the Albany Theatre where she got her first taste of the media industry. Here she learned everything there was to learn about the performing arts. Carol was interested in organising people and events and was hungry to work more in this field. It was here where she set up a theatre group called "Second Wave".

Carol is always one to grab at opportunities. The Greater London Arts were giving away money for training in the visual arts for black people and Carol attended as many training events as she could. She was privileged to work with Menelick Shabazz who ran Cheddo - a training programme. She also went on another training programme called "Looking Black" by the Black Film Makers Co-operative.



Carol worked at the Albany Video, based at the Albany Theatre as a Production Manager. During this time she was commissioned by Channel 4 television to produce and direct a music documentary called "Step Forward". It was here that she began to build her career, her passion being to provide access to structured training for people who were under-represented in the industry, especially black women and girls.

Carol's dedication and hard work earned her a Channel 4 scholarship to the London Film School where she majored in Production and Production Design.

She has also studied in America, where she did an internship and completed teaching and studying at Columbia University. She also had a stint at producing a film in Guyana.

She was also recommended to produce production programmes at the BBC and CH4 and here she worked with Inge Blackman producing a film called "The Gospel Girls".

Carol then went on to work at FT2, then in the Spring of 2001, Carol was successful in getting the job of Millennium Award Co-ordinator. Her brief was to produce 120 projects for Skillset in partnership with BBC training and the Millennium Commission. Therefore, during 2002-2003 she executive produced: 10 radio programmes, 25 short films, 18 websites and 10 magazines.

Skillset was set up to encourage delivery of informed training and education provision so that the British broadcast, film, video and interactive media industry's technical, creative and economic achievements are maintained and improved

"Young people don't have dreams, they have visions of the future". Carol Jacobs

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