The proposal was to deliver an alcohol harm reduction strategy targeting 400 participants through arts intervention workshops, employing a range of arts forms with a focus on the use of digital media. Of these 400 participants, 75 young people were to form part of the Message in a Bottle leadership program. These young people were to come from 14 communities around northern NSW including Armidale, Tamworth, Narrabri, Moree, Boggabilla/Toomelah, Walgett, Mungindi, Lismore, Nimbin, Bowraville, Nambucca, Macksville and Casino.

The participants of the BE leadership program are young people experiencing multiple layers of disadvantage who have keenly demonstrated or expressed a need to further develop their skills through the arts and help promote social change in their community. They have shown leadership qualities in BE projects, are driven by their commitment to social justice and improving their quality of life. They are not those who exhibit less challenging behaviours or are those who are unproblematic to work with.

While ostensibly BE is intensively working with a relatively small number of young people with this program, the very nature of the program (each of the young people then working on projects and delivering peer to peer forums that engage with other disadvantaged at risk young people) means that during the project period hundreds of lives will be touched and interventions precipitated.                     

In 2007 MIAB built on the work undertaken in 2006. It targeted ten primary communities and six secondary communities in Northern NSW and built new skill repertoires, combating the negative impact of disadvantage. The skills developed focused on assisting workers whose mandate is to work with the long term disadvantaged and also project participants who are victims of long term disadvantage. The use of the arts enables BE to achieve these outcomes.

Using the arts as an intervention tool the 2007 MIAB project aimed to:

• Create sustainable partnerships with local agencies assisting them with new processes and skills to better engage the target group.
• Create and deliver a media campaign with participants to educate themselves, their peers and the broader community about the disadvantage caused through alcohol abuse.
• Create   peer to peer education programs addressing the disadvantage caused through alcohol abuse.
• Deliver leadership camps involving emerging artists, participants and support workers coaching them in the delivery of BE type projects and intensive youth development opportunities with Peter Slattery.
• Deliver digital media, dance and music programs in the targeted communities producing material for the peer education strategy BE Hip Hop on the BUS to be delivered in early 2008 across all the participating communities.

Funding was not confirmed from the NSW Government for the MIAB project until May 2008. Despite funding support from the NSW Government in 2007, Beyond Empathy continued the delivery of MIAB with full program funding support from the corporate and philanthropic sectors.