A peripheral vision

profile such as the Theatre Workshop/Stonewall Youth collaboration Contracts, but more often than not, invisible to press and public alike.

As Ian Shaw, director of Media Education, the organisation which produces the Festival Radio Project, notes: ''There is so much going on to give young people, and those from peripheral estates, a dynamic role within the Festival. It's just that none of us has the big PR budgets to promote it.''

Tellingly, this year's ''walkabout'' by Edinburgh Lord Provost Eric Milligan and Fringe Director Hilary Strong - an event borne out of her criticism of Edinburgh City Council's derisory financial support for the Fringe - took them straight to Media Education's initiative with homeless young people at the South Bridge Resource Centre. The council too, it would seem, desires a higher profile for this sort of work. It is, after all, exactly the ''fringe'' it supports.

Producing radio programmes comes unnervingly naturally to the teenagers from Edinburgh's Bridges Project, even if the Festival itself does not.

According to project worker Sandy Wiles, it generally passes them by: ''Their lives are pretty chaotic a lot of the time, with personal problems and difficult housing situations. Often this overtakes what is going on in the rest of the world. I doubt many would even have the confidence to go to a box office and ask for tickets.''

The collaboration with Festival Radio is designed to focus and motivate them, develop confidence, and offer new training opportunities. It makes surprisingly good radio, too. ''They don't assume anything,'' says Ian Shaw. ''They have no inhibitions and ask people the obvious questions others often forget. 'What are you doing?' is a wonderful question for radio.''

The broadcasting project began four years ago, working with residents of Craigmillar. The idea was to offer opportunities for ordinary people to access the media and, in doing so, develop skills in communication and self-esteem. So far the organisation has worked with young people from throughout the city, adult unemployed groups, single parents, people with learning difficulties, and those with English as a second language. As Ian Shaw says: ''The radio programme is the end product, but it is the process that is important. In a way it is saying, look there are other options for you. You, too, can have a strong and positive role within the Festival. It's making them visible, making them heard.''

And certainly the number of people within earshot is growing each year. Twenty stations around the country now take Festival Radio packages, including Scot FM and Forth FM, from daily broadcasts to weekly round-ups.

The latest reach, calculated using the industry's RAJAR figures, is four million. The aim now is to get the work heard abroad, utilising contacts with foreign companies visiting Edinburgh to promote both the Festival and the radio programmes on stations throughout the world.

One of these companies is the Tumanishvili Film Actors Studio from Georgia who are bringing their new production of Medea to the Assembly Rooms. The play, written by Greek-born, Edinburgh University lecturer Olga Taxidou, reworks ancient tales within a contemporary setting, exploring issues of identity and home. The company have been here before, but this year they are bringing with them a group of 15 young people, aged from 16 to 20. They will take part in a programme of workshops and training in association with Queen Margaret College, showing that outreach work, with its important focus on specific communities and localities, can also have an international dimension.

The young Georgians are studying drama, but the social and economic situation in this former Soviet republic means that their backgrounds demonstrate similar deprivations to the young Scots from the Bridges Project. Years of civil unrest following Georgia's independence, coupled with the disruption of historical trading links with Russia, have proved hugely damaging. Residential electricity is on only from 8am to 10am and 8pm to 12pm.

Over a crackly telephone from Georgia, with time delays large enough to perform a short Fringe show, director Keti Dolidze outlines the struggle, but also the determination to bring the young people across. ''They are not from rich families, they have no money, they have never been abroad. But they are learning English and about Edinburgh. Our tax laws make business sponsorship difficult, but private individuals will make the trip possible.''

Supporters include the Arveladze twins, Georgian footballing brothers playing with Dutch teams Ajax and Breda.

A love of football and defeated but heroic national teams is not the only link between Scotland and Georgia as the outreach work shows.

The similarities between the two countries are, in reality, manifold: size, geography, the diversity of people, and dialect. For Highlanders read Svans. And, of course, there is the struggle for autonomy from a bigger neighbour. Scotland's journey has thankfully been a less bloody one.

Georgia has also looked to Edinburgh for inspiration for its own International Arts Festival in Tblisi which began last year. The event brought to the city 125 performers from 18 countries across Europe, America, and the former Soviet State, in an acknowledgement and celebration of the difficult reconstruction of the country. The festivities this year are dedicated to those who have suffered and died due to continuing unrest in Georgia's Gali region.

It may take years for the situation to stabilise properly, but it is hoped that somewhere in the future a reciprocal trip to Georgia will take place with young people from Edinburgh. Doubtless they will be wielding radio mics.

n Festival Radio, which is sponsored by Telewest Communications, has daily inserts on stations around the country including Scot FM, Forth FM, and Q96.

n Medea: A World Apart is

at the Observer Assembly Rooms from Tuesday until Thursday at 4.20pm.