Beverly Mire is the assistant director of education for MIT/Terrascope Youth Radio. For 13 years she was the deputy director of Youth Radio/Youth Media International and for the past five years, she has run media programs at Boston-area schools and nonprofit organizations. Ms. Mire has won numerous awards for her work, and sits on the advisory board for the Regional Media Arts Educators Consortium, the Boston youth media network.
YMR: Describe Terrascope Youth Radio and your role in the program.
Beverly Mire: Terrascope Youth Radio is an outgrowth of Terrascope, which is a program for MIT freshmen. It was and is the brainchild of our director, Ari Epstein. We are funded by the National Science Foundation, and work in partnership with Cambridge Youth Programs (CYP), the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), and the Blunt Youth Radio Project in Portland, Maine.
We primarily serve high school-aged youth from the Cambridge school system, although young people from nearby communities have also participated in our program. Our high school-aged participants come on board as interns to the radio program. Typically, they find out about us through CYP, the city of Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program, outreach activities, and, now, word-of-mouth.
Terrascope Youth Radio interns create audio features about the environment—our world, our city, our neighborhoods, our schools. Our stories are about the big issues—such as global warming—and also about everyday stories, such as how to be environmentally conscious when you shop. Because our home base is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and in close proximity to the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country, Terrascope Youth Radio interns are able to create their stories with the assistance of university research scientists who are experts in their fields.
I like to say that in my role as Assistant Director of Education, my most important duty is to make sure Terrascope Youth Radio interns are happy, have fun, learn a lot, and have the best experience possible. This goes beyond creating great radio/audio. It is just as important to me that by coming to MIT they are exposed to college life, learning that going to college is imperative and accessible.
YMR: Terrascope definitely has specific issue focus. How does this make it different from other youth radio programs?
Mire: As far as I know, Terrascope Youth Radio is the only radio project that has an environmental focus. That’s what makes us different, and I’m very proud of that. Our interns care passionately about the future of the planet, and by being exposed to top-notch scientists from MIT, Harvard, Tufts, and organizations around the country, they are learning how they can affect change on a local level.
YMR: What are some of the distribution strategies used by Terrascope?
Mire: We have a very fruitful relationship with PRX. Through PRX, we worked with New Hampshire Public Radio to create and distribute “Fresh Greens.” In Fall, 2008 we worked with Clearwater.org to create Clearwater Moments, which aired on WAMC-Albany, whose signal covers 7 states. We also periodically collaborate with the Blunt Youth Radio Project which culminates with a field trip to Portland, Maine to participate in their weekly show which is aired on WMPG-FM.As for our ongoing project, Terrascope Youth Radio features are played on the weekly show “Terravoice,” which is run by MIT students and airs on WMBR-FM. Terravoice is hosted by MIT Terrascope undergraduate students.
YMR: What are some of the benefits to the high school interns working with college kids on a college campus?
Mire: Just by being themselves, the Terrascope college and graduate staff members inspire Terrascope Youth Radio interns to look beyond high school. One college student is going for her Masters in Education at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, another is an undergrad there. The rest of the staff is made up of MIT juniors and seniors.
Some of our high school interns don’t see college as a possibility. Money is a huge barrier. In some cases they don’t like their school and can’t see staying beyond 12th grade. Some have financial pressures at home. Our college and graduate staff are more than willing to talk to the interns about these frustrations, about making the right choices around education beyond high school, and not letting money stand in the way.
We have seen our high school interns pursue more opportunities due to their exposure to Terrascope’s college and graduate mentors. Just recently, one of our interns was accepted to four universities, including Suffolk University in Boston.
YMR: Give an example of one of the summer activities that allows the high school interns to take an active, hands-on role in both community issues and radio production.
Mire: Last summer we created an audio tour for the Boston Children’s Museum that highlighted the building’s green features. At the same time, the interns assisted in the production of “Fresh Greens,” an hour-long special that was distributed through New Hampshire Public Radio and Public Radio Exchange (PRX). You can access these projects at these links: www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/about/audio_tour.html and www.nhpr.org/special/freshgreens/about
YMR: What drives your passion for the work you do?
Mire: I’m going to be very honest. People often say things like, “you must feel so good about what you’re doing.” That makes me a little nuts because I don’t think of it that way and I can’t convince them otherwise. Here’s the truth: I do it because I like it. I do it because I’m good at it. It’s no different from when I was in commercial radio (my background). I stayed at a job as long as I liked it. It has nothing to do with “feeling good” or doing “good deeds.” It has everything to do with liking where I work, and liking the people I work with. That’s what drives me.
YMR: Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
Mire: I’d like to ask my colleagues how we can work together effectively to get more public schools, especially “underserved” schools to adopt the best practices of successful youth media programs. It’s no secret that media as a form of expression helps even the most disinterested and dispirited student learn, and learn better. It isn’t brain surgery. It doesn’t take research. With today’s technology it isn’t even expensive. It just takes implementation. For the life of me I don’t see what’s holding them back.
Category: 2010
Media and Expression: An Approach for Helping Girls Process Trauma
When one of Teen Voices’ 16-year-old teen editors found out that she had lost her aunt and cousins in the Haiti earthquake, she stood in our offices, shaking and crying. She was one of many to get devastating news that day. The earthquake reached deep into Boston’s Haitian community—the third largest in the United States—where countless families lost relatives.
At Teen Voices, we recognize that providing a space to write, process, and speak—both in person and on the radio—can help girls process trauma while alerting media outlets that girls’ voices are critical to the global dialogue.
About Teen Voices
At Teen Voices, we serve approximately 200 low-income girls of color each year. Most girls are dealing with critical issues in their lives that require maturity far beyond their years.
We work with many girls who are dealing with poverty, parental abandonment, and terminally ill parents; some are teen mothers, some are experiencing emotional or physical abuse, and some are impacted by gang life and prostitution. A host of deeply personal issues call for the attention of an intergenerational support network, which is what Teen Voices provides.
Typically at Teen Voices, we encourage girls to think about the sexualized, marginalized images of women in the media. We support girls to examine the media’s fixation on beauty and challenge constructed norms of female identity. Girls recognize that they are not represented accurately in the media and that real stories and statistics take investment, research, and a viable outlet. Mentors and staff help girls to analyze the media, suggesting other, healthier options, and training on creating these options.
In the process, Teen Voices becomes an outlet for girls experiencing traumatic events in their personal lives. For every half hour spent working on a feature article, a separate half hour is spent discussing, say, the bullying that many girls experience at school. A 16-year-old mother focuses on her journalism skills for an hour, and then spends a second hour talking with her mentoring group about the challenges of mothering. Girls routinely enter our program shy, wary, and intimidated; two months later, they are affectionate, engaged, and driven.
Girls Respond to Haiti
The earthquake in Haiti directly impacted many of the girls we serve. Their voices were not represented in the news and it was clear that as a youth organization, we needed to respond to the trauma the girls were going through. We also felt the real lack of media representation for this community, and saw the girls’ frustration that their voices weren’t being heard.
In response, we put together a special feature that became a testimony of what the girls and their country lost, connecting the girls to each other through shared experiences and the written word. Their essays speak to a deeply wounded country, a sense of frustration with the way newscasters portray this country, and of course,an overwhelming sense of loss.
For example, in Sabrina Isaac’s essay, she writes, “This disaster will forever haunt me ‘till I take my last breath on this planet. I lie at night with pictures under my pillow that we took in July 2009, and I say, ‘They’re not really dead, they’ll come back to me. This is all a just a nightmare.’ Then reality sets back in, and I have to deal with knowing that they are gone forever.”
Isaac shared her essay on Boston radio station WBUR. An intense experience for anyone let alone a teen in trauma, the 16-year-old participated because she wanted to tell others her story. Getting girls’ voices on the air offered a much-needed diversification of sources on the Haiti disaster, giving a rare in-depth look at a global story from the perspective of girls.
Upon reflection, Isaac says she felt relieved that she was able to share her story through writing and on the radio, because she “felt like other people would know how [the earthquake] affected people firsthand instead of just hearing it on the news. Just by looking at it on the news, you wouldn’t really understand unless someone actually told you what he or she went through when it happened,” she says.
She says the experience made her feel more comfortable opening up, and helped her process her thoughts so she was able to focus more clearly on the day to day.
“It’s no longer something that’s always on my mind,” Isaac says. “When it happened, I didn’t do too well in school, it was just something I would always think about in school, [where] I would just blank out. Then after writing it down and talking about it, it was like, ‘OK Sabrina, you can do this, you can think about other things.’”
Lynn Celestin, another of Teen Voices’ teen editors, responds similarly. She says that writing and speaking about the Haiti disaster made her realize the benefits of talking to others about her problems.
“Now, when something happens to me, I share it,” Celestin says. “It’s easier to share it out because people can help you, instead of keeping it inside where nothing’s being done about it.” She continues, “Writing it down felt permanent. People got to see how I was feeling, and it was exactly how I felt. It wasn’t just me yelling, it was in writing.”
Celestin shared her essay about Haiti, and her thoughts on the media coverage of the earthquake, on Commonwealth Journal, a public affairs radio program produced by WUMB Radio on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus. She describes the experience as nerve-racking but meaningful. Celestin taps into a key aspect of combining writing and speaking as a means to process trauma and amplify girls’ voices:
“Writing was one step,” she says, “and then talking about it meant everybody else could hear. When I knew they were finally listening, it was that much easier to say.”
For both girls, it was in part a public expression of pain that garnered them the air time to share their stories—not an easy or desirable experience, but a necessary one in the interest of adding their voices to the conversation. By giving girls a supportive environment, some training in writing and speaking, and a microphone, we will learn a great deal more about the young people in our communities. And through this combination of introspection and outward expression, we can establish a process for girls to share and make sense of their experiences.
Suggestions to the Field
Consider working with teens in your program on an exercise that allows them to process difficult emotions privately and publicly, in that order. Draw on community resources to support the girls in this process: seek input from youth workers, therapists, and writers who have experience working with teens.
Approach media outlets that are open to diverse viewpoints and will take young participants seriously.
Give your teen participants the media training they need to accomplish a successful interview. Run mock interviews with them ahead of the “real thing.”
Remind teens that they can stop writing or speaking if they feel uncomfortable. This ceases to be a useful exercise if they feel overwhelmed.
Next Steps
When we wonder why more women aren’t in positions of power in media, politics, engineering, mathematics, and countless other fields, we have to look at the options available to them on the newsstand, and the limited exposure their authentic voices receive on television and radio.
Amplifying real girls’ voices in television and print early will help us grow a new generation of women who can speak effectively to public affairs and communicate about their emotional wellbeing. Asking girls what they think, and listening to what they have to say, is the first step toward evening the playing field. It’s also the only way to capture the real experiences of young people, who have much to contribute to dialogue around world events like the Haiti earthquake.
Jessica Moore is the editor and publisher at Teen Voices, a print and online magazine created entirely by teen girls through a journalism mentoring program. Moore was previously managing editor of digital media for New York-based nonprofit Sesame Workshop, and senior education producer for U.S. News and World Report. She was also online producer for PBS NewsHour, working largely on arts and politics coverage as well as news content for teens. Moore is a contributing writer to the arts journal Big Red & Shiny, and is a member of the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Online News Association.
Interview: Maya Stiles-Royall
Maya Stiles-Royall is a Media Lab Coordinator for HOME, Inc. in Jamaica Plain, MA, and currently teaches media literacy and production classes at two middle schools in Somerville. Maya’s adventures in media began at Yale University when she took up the Film Studies major and began making films in the New Haven elementary and high schools where she worked. They have since taken her to a Johannesburg, South Africa with an NYU study abroad program, and across the United States on a vegetable oil-powered bus with a sustainability education non-profit called BioTour. Maya is looking forward to beginning her Ed.M this fall with the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
YMR: What background experiences inspired your passion for youth media and how did you come to work in the field?
Stiles-Royall: Like many youth media educators, I was drawn into the field by my own experiences as a young artist and filmmaker. As a high school student, I lived in the darkroom, scribbled poetry incessantly, and dreamed of becoming a photojournalist. I hadn’t considered filmmaking until an internship with documentary filmmaker, Katrina Browne, the summer after my freshman year at Yale. Shadowing Katrina during the post-production of her PBS/POV documentary, Traces of the Trade, I began to understand the transformative power of film media—the way it can activate change within the viewer, the producer, and even society. The internship sparked something within me, and I threw myself into the Film Studies major as soon as I returned to school in New Haven.
I also began working as a classroom assistant for a kindergarten class at Dwight Elementary School. So, when a production class gave me the opportunity to shoot my first film, I took the camera with me into Ms. Lubanda’s classroom. I had admittedly fallen in love with the gregarious students, and I wanted to show the Yale community that the youth of New Haven were capable of much more than riding in the “bicycle gangs” that we heard about so often in the Yale Daily News. Then, filming at Family Literacy Night, I had one of those transformative experiences: a fourth grade student stole my camera. When he took the camera, I realized that maybe it should have been in his hands all along. How could I be the one to deconstruct their representation? Wasn’t that something that the students should be able to do for themselves? This moment pushed me to confront the complex inequities that exist in media production, and inspired me to work towards the democratization of media through education.
The following year, I traveled to Johannesburg South Africa with an NYU study abroad program focused on documentary video production. I lived there for seven months, and worked closely with the youth at a community art and feeding center in Kliptown, Soweto to produce two films about the township community. When I returned to Yale, I worked with three students at New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School to produce a documentary about the tense and complicated relationship between Yale students and the New Haven youth. While they showed me their New Haven, I showed them mine.
Through the reciprocal act of filming one another we were able to begin to cross the socio-cultural divide. Towards the end of the project, I asked one of the students to explain what the project meant to him. He answered, “We’re understanding each other. It’s not ‘a study on the species of urban youth’, you know, it’s a documentary on…let’s get to understand these kids, so they can get to understand me. I think that’s what makes it different.”
I graduated from college in 2008, and spent the following year working for BioTour—an environmental education non-profit that travels the country aboard vegetable oil and solar powered school busses. As the Media Coordinator and Documentarian for BioTour, I helped lead over 30 educational events, and produced a series of short educational videos about sustainability, the youth climate movement, and our journey on the bus.
My time with BioTour was a sort filmmaking boot camp, and when it was time for me to step off the bus, I couldn’t wait to work more directly towards ensuring that all youth have access to the same opportunities as I have had to explore the art of media production. I found my way to HOME Inc. and am so grateful for the chance to fully immerse myself in the hands-on practice of media education.
YMR: Describe the context in Somerville that supports youth media and youth media organizations like Home, Inc. Talk a little bit about the district-wide mandate to put media education in all schools. If you know a bit about the history of this mandate, please tell us.
Stiles-Royall: The district mandate that has established media education in every Somerville elementary school grew out of the success of HOME Inc.’s work at Somerville High School with Media Lab Coordinator Craig Leach. Craig teaches a TV and Media Production elective class, and collaborates extensively with classroom teachers to integrate media projects into their curriculums.
Inspired by the enthusiasm and achievement of Craig’s students, and bolstered by a grant from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the school district designed a new initiative for every 7th and 8th grader in the system to receive media literacy and production training. The program requires each student to work in a small production team to complete an interdisciplinary media project on a topic of their choosing. To support the first year of this initiative, the school system contracted three additional HOME Inc. Media Lab Coordinators (myself included) to coordinate the program and provide technological training and assistance to all students and teachers. The HOME Inc. staff has also been responsible for developing and implementing a yearlong curriculum to guide the development of the students’ media projects.
This initiative marks an enormous commitment to media education on behalf of an urban school district whose students have little exposure to technology tools at home and in the community. By requiring every middle school student to participate, the district is insuring that every student in Somerville has the basic skills to navigate the world of media. Hopefully, some students will develop identities as “media-makers”, and choose to continue cultivating their voice in Craig’s high-school program. Somerville should certainly be commended for introducing students to the power and possibilities of media, and for taking action to ensure that every single student is armed with the technology skills that are essential for success in higher education and the future workforce.
YMR: Describe your position at Home, Inc., including the relationship between Home, Inc. and the Somerville school district, the where & when of the classes you teach, and the key actors involved in making it all happen.
Stiles-Royall: My official title at HOME Inc. is “Media Lab Coordinator.” It is a stipended service-year position. The Somerville school system contracted me through HOME Inc. to teach media literacy and production classes to the 7th and 8th grade students at the JFK and Healey elementary schools.
I teach three separate sections of class a day (twelve a week) between JFK and Healey. Each class is 40 minutes long. My position is supported by the Library and Media department, and so I teach each section of students during their weekly specialist period with the librarian. (Basically, I see each of my 200 students for 40 minutes a week.) I also teach small after-school programs once a week at both schools, as well as a weekly elective class at Healey.
There are three other HOME Inc. Media Lab Coordinators with identical positions in each of the five middle schools in Somerville.
In terms of “key actors”…
There’s Alan Michel, my boss at HOME Inc. He is responsible for all the networking and organizing that made my placement in the Somerville school system possible. I meet with him and the other media lab coordinators at least once a week to collaborate on lesson plans, discuss best practices, and trouble-shoot challenges.
Then there’s Charlie LaFauci, who is the Supervisor of Library Media Services in the Somerville schools. He is our primary point of contact within the school system, and it is through his department that we were able to get the funding and equipment to work within the school.
There is also Vince McKay, the Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Somerville. He is responsible for pushing through the district-wide mandate to deliver student-driven, hands-on media literacy and technology instruction to every 7th and 8th grade student in the district.
And of course, there are the librarians. The librarians are our most constant collaborators, and we work closely with them each day to teach class. They have been eager to learn how to integrate more media literacy and production skills into their lessons. Since the school system cannot necessarily afford to keep the HOME Inc. Media Lab Coordinators on site forever, it is important that we provide the librarians with the skills and resources they will need in order to continue running a successful and exciting media education program.
YMR: What are some of the challenges you have experienced as a media educator and/or what challenges face other young media educators like yourself?
Stiles-Royall: I was only out of college for one year when I started working as a full time media educator. Before my position with HOME Inc., I approached media production as a student—curious, experimental, and admittedly disorganized. Learning how to communicate about media as an educator has been like learning a new language. Like a typical film student, I developed most of my technical production skills by “playing around” and spending ridiculous 18-hour days experimenting with equipment and editing software until I had it figured out.
Since middle school students obviously don’t have the time or resources to do this, new media educators like myself must adapt everything that we’ve learned by “just playing around” into streamlined lessons and workflows. This is certainly a challenge. Articulating the nuances of shooting and editing can be clumsy and frustrating, and when you’re pressed for time (which, of course, happens way too frequently!), it is tempting to grab the mouse from the student to speed through the more complicated technical tasks.
As young media educators, we come into the field with big ideas and genuine passion, and though this exuberance is perhaps our biggest asset, learning how to balance our natural idealism with necessary pragmatism can be an enormous challenge.
We face many of the same challenges that every new teacher faces their first year. In fact, the biggest challenges I have experienced this year are specifically rooted in the public school setting of the program. I’ve found that I have too many students and too little time to give each the attention they need and deserve. Behavior and discipline issues have pushed me to tears, and this isn’t something I ever anticipated. The enormity of the task in front of me quickly became overwhelming. Most significantly, understanding the culture and operating procedure of the schools has been confusing, and communicating with teachers and administrators is difficult and stressful.
Most teachers and school principals have established routines and are already overwhelmed by crowded curriculums. They view the HOME Inc. staff as outsiders, and perceive the program as yet another responsibility that is being pushed onto their already way-too-full plates. Understandably, they get defensive about protecting their time. Though some teachers express enthusiasm for the project, few prove to be flexible and open to our ideas and methods.
I think this problem is ultimately rooted in the school system’s failure to include the teachers in enough of the planning of the initiative. The teachers have ended up feeling “out of the loop”, and were never really given the chance to fully get onboard. Though the intention behind Somerville’s bold efforts to integrate media education across the school system is admirable, a lot of the details of the program were underdeveloped. Roles and responsibilities were never completely delineated, and the district administrators failed to create meaningful opportunities for the HOME Inc. staff and current teachers to form true partnerships and work together.
YMR: Likewise, what are some of the successes?
Stiles-Royall: I try not to define success by the degree of my students’ technical skills. Success must go deeper than that—to the students’ ability to think critically about the media they are consuming and creating, and to work collaboratively to craft and communicate a message that is meaningful to them. Middle school is a time of such self-consciousness, and so my personal goal is for my students to develop a confidence in their voice, their story, and their creative choices. If I can help my students accomplish this, I will consider my work a success.
Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed and frustrated with the challenges of my work (which I’ve found is bound to happen in this field!), I remind myself of the successes that I experience with individual students every day: a shy 7th grader overcoming their fear and hesitance of being in front of the camera; a production group taking the initiative to write a five-page script over the weekend; a frustrated student emerging from the fog and chaos of brainstorming with a clear idea that they are proud of. These small moments are often enough to keep me energized and renew my passion and commitment to my work.
YMR: What is your advice to the field with respect to facilitating the transition of youth producers into young media educators, and cultivating the passion and enthusiasm of young media educators in general?
Stiles-Royall: Despite the challenges, being able to test my passion and ideals against the realities of the classroom has been an amazing learning opportunity. The youth media field can help young media educators meet these challenges, and take full advantage of this opportunity, by providing us easy and centralized access to successful lesson plans, curricula, worksheets, exercises, project assignments, examples, and best practices. There is no need for any of us to reinvent the wheel, and being able to follow in the footsteps of successful media educators will facilitate our fluency in this new language.
We need (free!) professional development opportunities. Not just for technical skills or media project planning, but also for handling behavior issues, communicating and connecting with teachers, and navigating school bureaucracies. HOME Inc. introduced me to the Regional Youth Media Arts Education Consortium in Boston, and it has been an amazing resource for me in my first year as a media educator. We need to build and strengthen these networks, and create more “ins” for new educators like myself. Perhaps communities like RYMAEC could even establish young media educator mentoring programs, where new educators like myself could spend time shadowing and processing our work with more experienced media education professionals.
Open Call : The MASTERPIECE Video Diary
The WGBH Lab Open Call is an invitation for you to make a completed video short and share it with the world!
This April, WGBH Lab is partnering with MASTERPIECE to launch The MASTERPIECE Video Diary Open Call, inspired by The Diary of Anne Frank, airing April 11th on PBS in recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day. We’re asking Youth Media Makers, ages 13 and up, to create an inspiring video or audio diary entry about themselves, and post it to the Lab: http://lab.wgbh.org/masterpiece.
Our hope is to stimulate and nurture youth self-expression using media. We have asked those who might submit to consider intolerance in their creations by telling us how they overcome instances of bullying or being disrespected for the way they look, think, or for what they believe, and to tell the world how they or someone they know might have handled it.
Entries should be no longer than 3 minutes, and submitted before May 31st, 2010. Entries received this month may be part of a short video piece The Lab and MASTERPIECE are producing to air at the end of The Diary of Anne Frank on April 11th. All pieces submitted before May 31st will be considered for future broadcast opportunities.
Visit us at: http://lab.wgbh.org/masterpiece, to learn more.
*FREE* Music Production Workshop, 6/21 – 6/25
Now accepting applications!
http://www.bavc.org/bumptraining
Do you work with students/youth who are interested in music? Would you like to be able to offer a class where they can learn the technical and critical skills to produce their own music? The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) is offering a FREE teacher training workshop where you can learn what you need to know to start your own music production program.
Who is invited?
Community-based organizations, teachers, after-school programming providers, and anyone interested in offering a digital music production class for youth. Instructors with regular access to a computer lab are especially encouraged to apply. Any experience with music is helpful, but not required – we’ll teach you what you need to know!
What exactly will we be doing?
Working from BAVC’s BUMP Beats curriculum, we will be covering the basics of computer-based music production using the Reason software program. Technical topics will include drum programming, working with samplers and synthesizers, basic keyboarding and music theory. In addition, we will discuss best practices, such as critical listening exercises, efficient troubleshooting, and using web-based materials to enhance instruction. We will also be offering several supplemental workshops around classroom management, artistic responsibility and program funding/sustainability. Click here for more information (www.bavc.org/bumptraining).
Why should I be interested?
Many youth are craving the opportunity to learn about music and become creators, but don’t have access to the training and equipment to make this possible. Offering this opportunity can be a powerful draw to your program. From an educator’s perspective, music can be an excellent catalyst for teaching technology skills, media literacy and critical thinking. We will work with participants on how to begin building their programs within their budgets as well as advice around fundraising and sustainability.
Where/when will the training happen?
June 21-25, 2010 at BAVC’s Townsend St. training facility in San Francisco.
How much will it cost?
The training is FREE, but we are asking for a $100 deposit to hold a spot in the class. Deposits will be refunded at the end of the class.
For more information, please contact Chris Runde (crunde@bavc.org) at 415-558-2181.
Powerful Voices for Kids Summer Institute | Philadelphia, July 5 -9, 2010
The Powerful Voices for Kids Summer Institute is an intensive professional development experience developed by Renee Hobbs and taught by a diverse faculty including leading scholars, experienced classroom teachers, media professionals, and educational technology specialists. Participants learn about the theory of media literacy, engage in model lessons to deepen their understanding of the use of critical media analysis and media composition in the K- 8 classroom, strengthen technology skills, and explore the complex role of at-home literacies involving media and technology in the lives of children and young people.
The program combines discussion, small group activities, and composition with media and technology. Participants engage in three model lessons during each day of the program, helping them expand their repertoire of instructional strategies. Participants gain experience with media composition activities using video and online writing collaboration tools. All participants receive a Flip video camera to take home. Each day of the program, teachers engage in a production activity. As part of their learning, teachers interview an elementary student from the PVK summer camp using a video camera and edit a simple video, uploading it to YouTube. Teachers create a basic web page to compose and to share their writing. These practical skills prepare teachers to re-enter their classrooms in the fall with a repertoire of exciting strategies to engage and stimulate student learning.
Learn more about the program here.
Join us this summer for a dynamic program of professional development!
Philadelphia, July 5 -9, 2010 — REGISTER ONLINE NOW!
Conferences
Journalism That Matters Mid-Year Gathering
“Create or Die: Forging Communities that Initiate, Innovate, Incubate”
June 3 – 6, 2009 | Detroit, MI
Wayne State University – Journalism Institute for Media Diversity | St. Andrews Hall
How are we going to reshape journalism so that it engages and serves all people and communities? Initiative, innovation, incubation. For three days in Detroit, some 150 or more people will work at the intersections of journalism, technology, community and diversity to answer our convening question — with action. We’ll share innovations and ideas already in process in the new media landscape, inviting entrepreneurs to showcase and further develop their work over a one-year cycle. Bring your project idea to a focused, three-day gathering of results-driven journalists, entrepreneurs, programmers, technologists, bloggers, videographers, funders, venture capitalists, artists and educators to discover, assess, shape and create new enterprises and new approaches to journalism in a digital age. We’ll learn about Detroit’s changing economy as a metaphor for the change and opportunity dogging journalism.
To register: https://www.123signup.com/event?id=mfptz
Youth Channel All-City: Mapping the Media Needs and Interests of Urban Youth
Dear Friends,
I am pleased to announce the on-line publication release of “Youth Channel All-City: Mapping the Media Needs and Interests of Urban Youth.”
In 2008 and 2009, the MNN Youth Channel along with a team of academics and youth researchers worked together to design and implement a citywide Community Needs Assessment (CNA). The primary aim of the CNA was to render visible and to understand the media needs and interests of New York City youth as well as to collect feedback for the “Youth Channel All-City” project, an initiative to create a youth-dedicated cable network for New York City and beyond.
Through focus groups, roundtable discussions, an online survey and individual interviews with youth, parents, youth media practitioners, educators, and other interested constituencies in New York City, the CNA collected information on media and community issues surrounding urban youth. I am excited to share with you their ideas and input. Their voices reveal not only what kind of programming they would like to see but also how passionate they feel about the work they engage with through youth media organizations.
Please visit our website,www.youthchannel.org to access a copy of the report. I am sure you will find it not only engaging and powerful but also relevant as we move into the 21st century media and education landscape.
Sincerely,
Isabel Castellanos
Director of Youth Channel
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
What is change you can believe in? 2010 Freedom of Expression Contest
NYCLU is sponsoring the Freedom of Expression Contest. This year’s theme: What is change you can believe in?
Youth are asked to choose an issue – racial justice, freedom of speech, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights or something else – then make some noise! Write an essay, poem or short story. Create artwork. Perform spoken word. Make a video. Sing. Rhyme. Be heard! To enter, for complete info and to see past winners, click here.
Entries must be original (group entries accepted), and will not be returned. Applicants must be 21-years-old or younger and live in New York City. Current and former NYCLU/ACLU staff and board members, and their relatives, are not eligible. Finalists will be invited to Broadway Stands up for Freedom – the annual NYCLU benefit concert.
Deadline to submit is Friday, May 28 – Entries will be reviewed starting April 1. Educators get prizes for submitting the most student entries!
Questions and complete rules & info: visit www.nyclu.org/contest, call 212-607-3361 or email contest@nyclu.org
Thousands of Dollars in Prizes! No topic is off limits. All mediums are accepted.
PLURAL+ Organizers Call on World’s Youth to Participate in the Second Youth Video Festival On Migration and Diversity
New York, NY (February 26, 2010)— Building on last year’s successful launch of PLURAL+, a youth video festival on migration, diversity and social inclusion, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) again invite the world’s youth to submit dynamic and forward-thinking videos focusing on these issues.
PLURAL+ 2009 not only provided young people with an effective platform to express themselves on key migration and diversity issues, but also the opportunity to reinforce the belief of the UNAOC and IOM that youth are indeed powerful and creative agents of social change.
“Last year’s PLURAL+ participation demonstrated how young people across the world are willing to creatively engage in complex social issues such as migration and cultural inclusiveness”, said Marc Scheuer, Director of the Alliance of Civilizations. “We were very pleased with the quality and relevance of the entries received, and we are thankful for the commitment of PLURAL+’s partners in supporting the distribution of these videos at festivals, conferences and TV broadcasts around the world.”
This year again, young people between the ages of 9 and 25 are invited to submit short videos of one to five minutes in length. The videos should express participants’ thoughts, experiences, questions and suggestions on migration, diversity, integration and identity, highlighting their realities as well as ideas on developing a peaceful coexistence in diverse cultural and religious contexts.
The aim of PLURAL+ is to ensure youth engagement in these important issues both at local and global levels by mainstreaming their voices through a variety of media platforms and distribution networks (broadcast, video festivals, conferences, events, Internet, DVD) around the world.
“We were pleased to see that the PLURAL+ 2009 entrants shared their thoughts, struggles and fears about their identity as youth as well as migrants. The true voice of PLURAL+ is found by listening to a population which is not only entering a new society as a migrant, but entering adulthood as well.” said Luca Dall’Oglio, IOM Permanent Observer to the United Nations.
A prestigious international jury will select three winners in three age categories (9–12, 13–17, 18–25). Each winner will be flown to New York and honored at an awards ceremony at the Paley Center for Media later in the year.
In addition, PLURAL+ partner organizations will award other exciting prizes and professional opportunities. These include co-productions and a chance for awardees to gain international exposure by presenting their work at film and video festivals, conferences and events around the world.
The winning videos from the 2009 edition of PLURAL + will be presented throughout the year at several events sponsored by partner organizations such as BaKaFORUM, Anna Lindh Foundation Forum, Chinh India Festival, Roots and Routes Festival, COPEAM Conference, the Royal Film Commission of Jordan’s Filmmakers Workshop, Havana Film Festival’s Red UNIAL, and NEXOS Alianza. In addition, broadcasters such as Aljadeed TV (Lebanon), TV Futura (Brazil), RAI (Italy) and United Nations TV affiliated networks will air the winning videos.
Participants in the 2010 competition should submit their videos between 1 March – 30 June, 2010. Further information including guidelines, rules and regulations, and the entry form can be found at the PLURAL+ website at: www.unaoc.org/pluralplus.
Contact:
Jordi Torrent, UNAOC, plural@unaoc.org
or Amy Muedin, IOM New York, amuedin@iom.int
©2010 United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. All rights reserved.
UNAOC Secretariat, The Chrysler Building, 405 Lexington Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10174 USA