MEDIA RELATIONS & PROGRAMME COMMUNICATIONS
Suzanne has experience of handling programme communications in emergency situations and tough environments. She ran UNICEF’s media campaign responding to the outbreak of polio in Indonesia in 2005.
Her expertise encompasses:
- developing key messages
- devising tools for communicating those messages to the target audience eg:
- producing and directing public information films
- working with community and business groups to design, write and
- produce appropriate tools such as flyers or school kits
- commissioning market research
- organising press conferences
- briefing individual or small groups of journalists and key decision makers
- appearing on TV and radio
- coaching press officers and associated staff to use new and traditional media to support their work
- crisis communications
- finding and fixing stories
- writing press releases and longer features
- strategic placing of stories in the media
The story and video footage used by Stephanie Hollyman on the Unicef site was produced and directed by Suzanne Yates in Java.
WRITING AND EDITING SERVICES
Having originally trained as a newspaper journalist in Britain, Suzanne has recently enjoyed returning to her roots as a commissioned feature writer. She wrote for the UNICEF website and the Jakarta Post newspaper.
She contributed to Tempo magazine (Indonesia’s version of Time) while working in Banda Aceh for, the Australian government’s tsunami reconstruction programme, funded by AusAID.
Suzanne also accepts commissions to edit and proof-read company and organisational reports.
FILM PRODUCTION & DIRECTION
A former producer with BBC News, Suzanne is accomplished at producing and directing informational films at short notice. She has also made longer, more creative features. She devised and ran a training course called “Creative TV” for the BBC. In Indonesia she oversaw the filming of a public service announcement to publicise the national polio immunisation round, and made two features about the outbreak with Yahdi Jamur. Yahdi has worked for all the international broadcasters, including the BBC, and is acknowledged as Indonesia’s finest cameraman. 
These films were broadcast on national and international television. They were used as social mobilisation tools at briefings for politicians and other decision makers. They were also shown to donors as part of the fund-raising effort.
The story and video footage used by Stephanie Hollyman on the Unicef site was produced and directed by Suzanne Yates in Java.
COMMUNICATIONS’ TRAINING
Suzanne can offer a complete, tailored training package for communications officers and field staff who may encounter the media or who want to contribute their experiences and expertise to corporate publications and websites. The training can encompass:
- Defining the message
- Writing skills – from brochures to blogs to press releases
- Taking pictures and recording sound for the web
- Making illustrated presentations and speeches
- Personal presentation skills
- Dealing with journalists
- Giving interviews
- Crisis communications
- Train the Trainer