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Youth Media Institute
http://www.youthmediaseattle.org
How do you come together and share a resource?
The Youth Media Institute regularly brings young people, as well as youth-serving organizations, together to make a positive impact in their community. YMI empowers high school students by teaching them technical skills to create media (video production, photography, music, design) and to use these skills to address issues they feel are important. YMI prepares youth to think critically about the world around them, and to express themselves in ways that are constructive.
Most recently, YMI brought 30 students and several organizations together to facilitate our largest-ever Youth Out Loud summer media workshop. During Youth Out Loud, students learn about pertinent media and social justice issues, and spend several weeks intensively working on a final project in the medium of their choice (video, photography or music). Participants meet for 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, for 6 weeks, and present their projects to the community at an annual summer showcase. Normally for this program, we serve up to 15 youth, but this year we were able to double that number, and had the most successful Youth Out Loud workshop our organization has ever held. Despite (of perhaps because of) the recent economic meltdown, YMI successfully leveraged the programmatic and financial cooperation of a number of local community organizations, including the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, El Centro de la Raza, SCAN TV, and Metrocenter YMCA.
How would your group use the award money?
YMI would use the award money to help fund the expansion of our annual BOOM! Youth Summit, to take place at the end of the 2009-2010 school year. In the spring of 2009, YMI engaged youth leaders from White Center-Boulevard Park to plan and facilitate its first BOOM! summit for local youth to discuss priorities for community development. About 10 students were engaged in every aspect of the planning process, and the result was incredible. They spent three months discussing and promoting the event, which drew nearly 100 high school students on a rainy Saturday morning. The summit was co-emceed by two talented teens who led participants through a day full of engaging workshops (on topics such as: sustainability, youth-adult partnerships and healthy living), food, break-out sessions, entertainment and community building. In the end, youth from these communities produced a list of their priorities for community development and presented them to policy-makers and other community leaders.
Next year, YMI plans to draw in additional community partners to participate and promote the event to bring BOOM to an even larger scale, serving youth from across South Seattle. YMI would use the award money from the Operation: Cooperation grant to leverage additional support and engage more youth.
