Title: exalt Program Coordinator
Reports to: Executive Director
Summary:
exalt youth is a new nonprofit seeking a dynamic, passionate individual to join our team. exalt’s mission is to transform the lives of youth along the spectrum of criminal justice involvement by equipping them with the skills and experience they need to be self-sufficient, self-fulfilled, productive members of society. We fulfill this mission by providing a cohesive program with four components: employment readiness and life skills training; paid internships in youths’ fields of interest; post-internship education and career development services; and an alumni network that provides ongoing access to resources. exalt partners with criminal justice agencies, community based programs and schools to serve youth ages 15-20, both in and outside of the criminal justice system.
exalt’s Program Coordinator conducts all aspects of the program including recruiting and selecting youth from partner sources, facilitating a month long preparation class, developing and monitoring internships that meet participants’ interests, and providing support to youth throughout all aspects of the program.
Responsibilities
· Marketing exalt’s program to youth in partner organizations and schools.
· Interviewing and selecting youth from partner sources to participate in exalt’s program.
· Facilitating five week long pre-internship preparation class, which runs two hours per day, four days per week.
· Developing internships throughout New York City in a wide range of employment sectors to meet youths’ various interests.
· Developing strong relationships with employer partners and youth to support their participation and success in internship experiences.
· Conducting regular out reach to internship sites throughout duration of internships through regular site visits, phone calls.
· Facilitating weekly seminars with participants during their internships to help youth process their experiences and continue developing education and career development skills.
· Facilitate monthly post-internship seminars for participants to assist them further their skill development and make progress towards achieving longer term educational and career goals.
· Work closely with Executive Director to continuously develop program to meet youth and employer needs and interests.
Qualifications
· Bachelors Degree required.
· Experience working with “at-risk” youth in educational contexts (e.g. schools or nonprofit programs). Experience working with court-involved youth preferred.
· Ability to engage youth typically resistant to educational settings.
· Experience facilitating groups utilizing creative curricula and pedagogy.
· Ability to network with a diverse range of external constituents including employers from multiple sectors, participants’ families, school and other agency staff.
· Excellent communication skills (both written and verbal).
· Interest in and ability to develop creative and rigorous programming for youth.
· Demonstrated ability to work independently and take initiative.
· Strong organization skills and attention to detail required.
· Bilingual (Spanish speaking) a plus.
Please send resume and cover letter to info@exaltyouth.org
(Please indicate in cover letter what interests you about the position. Resumes without cover letters will not be considered.)
exalt is an equal opportunity employer. www.exaltyouth.org
Author: Ingrid Hu Dahl
Urban Word NYC Fall 2007 Teacher Training
– self- expression – critical thought – self- confidence – educational achievement
Silver Center, 100 Washington Square East Room 714, Silver Center , NYC
Opening Panel and Performance: free to public
FRIDAY Sept 21, 2007, 7-9pm
Speaking Dreams, Living Words:
An Evening of Performance and Conversation on Justice and the Power of Poetry
David Kirkland Ph.D., Moderator
Panelists: Marcella Runell Hall, Queen GodIs, Piper Anderson, K~Swift
The arts have always served an important role in education to cultivate visions of justice and liberation. To some educators social justice is an act of changing the world outside of us. To others it means changing the world from within us. This conversation brings personal stories to center stage, examining the power of spoken word in education to reclaim identities and unleash powerful new voices. Through spoken word, social justice takes on new meaning beginning with one individual, a paper, and a pen whose words when spoken have the power to transform society and the self.
And weekend workshops:
SATURDAY, September 22, 2007 10am – 3pm
(100 Washington Square East, Manhattan, Room 520 Silver Center)
10-11:30am
Urban Word NYC Introduction to Student-Centered Pedagogy
Parker Pracjek & Michael Cirelli
We will discuss the cornerstone principles of Urban Word NYC pedagogy (student-centeredness, non-censorship, and mentoring model), and what it means to carry these principles as systems of belief that bleed into every aspect of our roles as educators. We ask: In what ways do I foster active listening to my writing students? In what ways do I re-enforce the status-quo (suspicion of and disappointment in inner-city youth) or invite deep questioning? In what ways do I model positive social dialogue? In what ways do I foster collaborative teaching?
11:30-1pm
NYCoRE
Educator as Activist
This workshop encourages teachers to examine the ways in which institutionalized education serves to maintain the predominant status quo. We will look at the ways in which a teacher may redefine their role from the traditional classroom-based professional to one who takes a stand on issues of educational justice. Curricular resources developed by NYCoRe on Katrina, immigration and militarism will be available.
1:30-3pm
Kamilah Forbes, Hip-Hop Theatre Festival
Hip Hop Theater 101
This workshop will cover the beginnings of hip hop culture in relationship to a performance aesthetic; discussion will include the history of hip hop theater: how, where and who started it as well as some of the social and political aspects that brought it into being. The workshop will also be interactive in exploring the basics of theater and storytelling in a performance context. Time permitting, other aspects of hip hop theater techniques will be explored, including using rhyme as the basis for dramatic scene, incorporating movement into the physicalization of a character and the utilization of a live DJ as the sound track that pushes a dramatic scene forward.
SUNDAY, September 23, 2007 10am – 3pm
(100 Washington Square East, Manhattan, Room 520 Silver Center)
10-11:30am
David Kirkland, Ph.D.,
Language and Liberation
This session examines the politics of language, exploring the power of the spoken and written word, always articulated in dialect, to construct our identities and unleash our powerful voices. In this way, language plays an important role in both poetry and the arts. A contested site, language is the place where youth struggle with words, theirs and others, to cultivate visions of justice and liberation. In language, youth take on new meaning beginning with a voice and verb, where words when spoken have the power to transform the world inside-out.
11:30-1pm
DJ Reborn (Robyn Rodgers)
Young Women Reborn: Through Popular Music, Media and Culture
The powerful voices, energy and brilliant analytical perspectives of young women deserve to be explored through alternative mediums. The “Young Women Reborn: Through Popular Music, Media and Culture” workshops seek to do just that. Robyn Rodgers will lead a mini version of this model with a discussion of the impact of media on girls, a writing exercise and a dj demo.
1:30-3pm
Rachel McKibbens
RELEASING THE HOSTAGES: How to Negotiate Poems Out of Our Youth
We cannot teach imagination, but we can encourage it. In this workshop, you will discover how to build your own custom fit exercises from poems, write poetry of your own to be used as prompts (even if you don’t think of yourself as a poet) and acknowledge the risks you must take as educators to earn the trust of your students; if they don’t believe we care about them as writers, they will not deliver the poems they are capable of.
REGISTER NOW!
Suggested donation for weekend training is $100.
Please be sure to pre-register by emailing Program Director, Parker Pracjek at parker@urbanwordnyc.org
Training is free for NYU students and staff, NYCoRE Members, and the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival staff.
For additional information, please call 212-352-3495.
About Urban Word NYC:
Founded in 1999, Urban Word NYC™ (UW) is at the forefront of the youth spoken word, poetry and hip-hip movements in New York City. As a leading nonprofit presenter of literary arts education and youth development programs in the country, Urban Word NYC offers a comprehensive roster of programs during the school day and after-school hours and conducts diverse programmatic offerings in the areas of creative writing, journalism, literature and hip-hop. UW presents local and national youth poetry slams, festivals, reading series, open mics and more. All told, Urban Word NYC works directly with 15,000 teens per year in New York City alone, and has partner programs in 42 cities across the United States. For more information, visit: www.urbanwordnyc.org.
About NYCoRE:
New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) is a group of public school educators committed to fighting for social justice in our school system and society at large, by organizing and mobilizing teachers, developing curriculum, and working with community, parent, and student organizations. We are educators who believe that education is an integral part of social change and that we must work both inside and outside the classroom because the struggle for justice does not end when the school bell rings. Visit: www.nycore.org
About the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival:
In six years, the Hip-Hop Theater Festival (HHTF) has grown into one of the most influential outlets showcasing hip-hop performing arts in the country. The Hip-Hop Theater Festival aims to invigorate the fields of theater and hip-hop by nurturing the creation of innovative work within the hip-hip aesthetic. The core of HHTF’s programming is its annual Festivals. Visit: www.hiphoptheaterfest.com
The September/October 2007 IndyKids is Out!
Go to www.indykids.net to download the paper and teacher’s guide, find out how to get copies and to subscribe.
The new issue includes stories about the Jena 6 case in Louisiana, United States military bases worldwide, Coca-Cola’s attack on workers’ unions in Colombia, the Khalil Gibran Academy, Harry Potter reviews and a Harry Potter scavenger hunt.
Visit:
http://www.indykids.net/teachers/index.html
for the Teacher’s Guide that accompanies the new issue.
Free copies of the new issues are currently available in New York City at:
• Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St (between Stanton & Rivington), Manhattan
• Revolution Bookstore, 9 W. 19th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues), Manhattan
IndyKids is a free newspaper and teaching tool for kids in grades 4-8 and high school English language learners. IndyKids aims to inform children on current news and world events from a progressive perspective and to inspire a passion for social justice and learning.
Expanding Low-Power FM Radio
Low power FM stations broadcast at 100 watts or less, making them affordable and useful tools for noncommercial and community groups. In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission issued hundreds of licenses for free to community stations, but Congress limited the service, keeping it from thousands of other communities, particularly inside big cities.
A repeal of these restrictions and a new issuing of licenses could benefit the youth radio field by increasing access to the airwaves and making more spaces for youth voices to be heard.
On June 21, 2007, Congresspersons Mike Doyle and Lee Terry introduced the Local Community Radio Act, which, if passed, will expand radio access across the country.
According to organizers at the radio access advocacy group, Prometheus Radio Project, the bill is moving forward, but support is needed to get representatives to cosign it.
For more information and to sign the petition to expand low power FM radio, go to http://www.expandlpfm.org/ or http://www.prometheusradio.org.
this month’s youth media professional
Erin Yanke, 37, is the Youth Advocate at KBOO Community Radio in Portland, OR. She is one of the hosts of Life During Wartime, a late night punk show, and a part of the Circle A Radio Collective.
Erin did her first radio show at the age of 15 at a Community radio station similar to KBOO and was involved with her college radio station by 18. She was attracted to radio because it helped her discover how big the world could be, mostly through the punk rock shows on KDVS, and radio stations out of the San Francisco Bay Area.
She explains, “I was a DJ and engineer, and when I moved to Portland in 1994 I came immediately to KBOO and began volunteering. We were still editing with reel-to-reel tape and razor blades at that time. I think about that, and the way that computers and Digital Editing have revolutionized the ability for people to be citizen reporters, and do-it-yourself artists and archivists, and it blows my mind. I’m sure my past helps me do my job well, but the thing that I think is more important is that I am still a volunteer here.”
In the non-radio parts of her life, Erin plays drums in the punk rock band Social Graces, works as a house cleaner, lives collectively, reads voraciously, and hangs out.
letter from the editor
Letter from the Editor
Welcome to September 2007 (Volume 1: Issue 8) of Youth Media Reporter (YMR).
This issue is focused on youth radio and its importance to the youth media field. Many thanks to this month’s contributors from Generation PRX, and Youth Radio (CA), Radio Arte, and interviewees from KBOO Youth Collective, Blunt Radio, Voices of Youth, Radio Rookies, and Radiobus.
The radio pieces in this issue cover:
• Teaching and understanding the value of diversity in Latin American youth radio classrooms;
• How providing leadership and career opportunities can engage youth to become peer-to-peer teachers and graduates-turned-employees at Youth Radio;
• The importance of radio partnerships; and
• The unique elements of youth radio that make it stand out across the field.
In addition to this month’s feature radio articles, check out our professional of the month Erin Lanke, the Youth Advocate at KBOO Community Radio in Portland, OR, who started radio at the age of fifteen and rocks out in a punk rock band.
YMR has two more issues left in the year 2007 and will be releasing a print version of the journal with 8-10 “special feature” articles that investigate trends, issues, and challenges current to the youth media field early 2008. If you would like a copy of the print journal, send a request to idahl@aed.org.
The next issue (#9) of YMR will come out on October 15th with a focus on cross-continental youth media work. In October, YMR will co-sponsor a two part “Youth Media Forum” at NAMAC’s Frontier is Here conference with Global Action Project, Youth Media Learning Network, and Listen Up! on the 17th and 19th in Austin, TX. Reflections from these forums will be available as in-briefs in next month’s issue.
If you are interested in writing an in-brief or a feature article about a youth media event, program, or challenge your organization has experienced or solved, contact YMR. We are interested in learning about you and your viewpoints.
If you would like to be published in YMR please contact me at idahl@aed.org. As always, we also encourage you to provide feedback or begin a conversation about any of the current articles, simply use the comment feature next to each article on the YMR website.
Warmly,
Ingrid Hu Dahl
Editor, YMR
Report from the field and make a difference!
Radio Stands Out
Imagine going back to high school, where stereotypes, rumors, and cliques run rampant like the spread of flu in the workplace. Maybe you remember what it felt like as a young person to manage the categorization that consumed your daily attendance at school, which perhaps was at times, embarrassing and hurtful, but more often silencing. What would it have been like if, during our youth, there were safe and accessible ways to communicate our self-expression, perspective, identity and voice?
Youth-made radio is unique because it provides youth producers a sense of anonymity and freedom to express oneself outside of the everyday routine of social politics. With only the use of voice and sound, radio allows young people a space to openly ask questions and discuss issues regarding their communities, social and political issues, and personal identity.
A sense of anonymity
Radio is a place for young people to explore expression, imagination and voice, no matter who they are or what their background may be. For example, Erin Yanke from KBOO Youth Collective in Portland, OR explains, “radio is a unique tool for all people because you are not judged by your appearance and it is one of the few mediums where the more you talk the more powerful you are.” Radio is the exact modality for young people to amplify their deepest concerns and explore their personal development offering fertile ground to construct and express their own identity.
In addition, radio is cheap, accessible, entertaining, and transmitted across radio waves locally, nationally and internationally. With advances in digital radio and podcasts, youth produced stories are accessible world-wide.
Because anyone can speak on radio without immediately disclosing their identity, young people have a better chance to be heard by adults in this medium than on television, in public, or even in print. These other mediums present images alongside opinions. Images sometimes cause people to discount the ideas presented because the person is too young, too poor, or too ethnic. While radio by no means tries to hide the value of these critical perspectives, because of the limited cues that identify people as a certain demographic, radio is able to captivate listeners to hear the messages of young producers. This aspect of radio helps adults hear the ideas of young people before judging them. For their opinions and ideas to have an impact on the larger community, young people need to be heard not just by other youth, but adults in the community.
In addition, the location of where broadcasts are recorded is not often identifiable, which again strips associations and pre-conceived notions based on one’s background, class or race. This is extremely important for marginalized youth; those who have been voiceless as a result of socially constructed ideologies. These young people have some of the most important and valuable perspectives on issues of injustice. Through radio, these young people can enhance their ability to analyze, critique, and speak out on issues and create solutions to the issues they uncover. In some cases, radio provides young people who cannot have a voice in the public—such as incarcerated youth—a platform to speak beyond the walls of detention centers. For example, in Portland, ME incarcerated youth at Long Creek Detention Center have the opportunity to travel to WMPG, Greater Portland Community Radio every six to eight weeks to broadcast their features and interviews live. Having the chance to broadcast beyond the walls of a detention center is powerful for young people because they can finally have their voices heard without the visual stigma attached to prison life. Radio broadcast for many of these young people is the only way to get their voices heard and their perspectives represented, to an engaged and widespread listener base.
The voices of marginalized youth are important because they bring to the table perspectives that are not often heard or considered in the mainstream media and public debate. Without youth radio, adults would miss relatable stories and experiences told by their fellow engaged and concerned citizens—youth producers. For example, Kaari Pitkin, Executive Director of Radio Rookies states, “[We] get an overwhelming response from adults affected by or relating to the story of a fifteen year old that they never would have expected to connect with.” Youth voice has a powerful effect on all people. Having a place to express their perspectives from the margins, and how they are a part of the struggle for equality in the U.S., is valuable for these young people. Since mainstream media is often full of voices who cannot relate to the struggle of injustice and representation, this opportunity for young people is critical for community members to hear a perspective that challenges pre-conceived assumptions regarding privilege, race, sex and class. Youth input can engage the public to involve their ideas, their action, and their perspective—an important step to valuing young people as informed citizens.
The flexibility of radio
Radio is a flexible medium that offers outlets needed by young people to express their ideas and opinions, depending on both the community and geographical/cultural context. There are over three dozen youth radio groups in the U.S. each of which provides spaces for young people to ask questions about their communities and personal development—starting with picking up a microphone in a sound room. From Portland, ME—where voices of incarcerated youth can be heard—to Portland, OR—where young people equally join a collective of marginalized communities on air, youth radio is the place to speak out outside of school walls.
In the U.S., outside the domains of school, youth radio programs provide a space for young people to facilitate creative approaches to ideas and shared knowledge. Claire Holman explains, “Schools really have limited 1st amendment rights. We [at Blunt Radio] are not encumbered by the kinds of limitations a school would have.” At youth radio programs, young people can freely express their ideas independently or with peers to design, produce, and execute stories on air, without the formal censorship of schools and other institutions.
Sam Chaltain, Executive Director of Five Freedoms Project explains, “In the U.S., rights for students in schools are not coextensive with the rights of adults however; the first amendment does not preclude anyone from starting a youth radio program.” U.S. based youth radio programs, capitalize on citizens’ freedom of speech as granted to them by the 1st Amendment. These programs, which are mainly offered after-school, provide a space for young people to process and question knowledge in a public forum. Learning how to put one’s thoughts on air teaches young people how to represent themselves, their beliefs, and their perspectives—no matter who is listening.
Around the globe, radio is used flexibly for the needs of young people, often used as a means to engage young people—who either attend or cannot attend school—with their communities. For example, at Voices of Youth (VOY) in Sierra Leone, radio is encouraged for young people—many who are illiterate—to make sense of and create grassroots change after a decade of war. These young people use radio to share their valuable perspectives in a country where 50% of the population are between the ages of 18-35. At VOY, radio is a major source of communication for young people who cannot read or write to be heard by peers and adults in the community. Using radio in this way provides marginalized youth both access and a platform to share their thoughts as they engage with communities in Sierra Leone that tune-in to Citizen Radio.
In Switzerland, Radiobus needs to use radio as a supplemental element integrated into school curriculum in order to teach young people how to fuse technology with processed information. Because Switzerland does not have many after school opportunities for youth voice nor the same school-based limitations as the U.S., young people can access radio in schools as a way to process knowledge and enhance classroom learning. Denis Badman from Radiobus explains, “Few possibilities are offered to youth to try and practice media. [Schools] owe it to themselves to give students a solid and pragmatic education in media.” From the perspective of Radiobus, youth radio is a flexible tool to enhance education while engaging young people in the effective use and practice of media. Because radio can be used innovatively for the amplification of youth voice, it can be tailored to marginalized youth and the different contexts of their communities around the globe.
Conclusion
Radio is the lynch pin of the youth media field. Because of its ability to provide anonymity for youth in an image-based society, amplify young people’s perspectives to large adult audiences, and use flexibility to engage youth around the globe in and outside schools, youth radio must be supported. Youth radio gives young people a head start on learning how to amplify their voices to a large, unknown audience—which prepares them to present ideas in the public eye, regardless of age, race, sex, class, and other forms of discrimination. Kaari Pitkin, Executive Director of Radio Rookies in NYC explains, “The process of reporting a documentary on something you care about, or that is important in your life, is a process of claiming your own story, often of self-discovery, intellect, and curiosity.” As a result of the important and innovative space radio provides young people, it is important to invest in this arena of youth-led media. Funders that value the voices of marginalized youth and their perspectives ought to support youth radio and not let the power of radio be cast aside, regardless of new and emerging technologies that attract the majority of media funding opportunities.
With radio, one has the freedom to construct content, an opinion, or a message—no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you are from.
Ypulse Tween Mashup
The Ypulse Tween Mashup
September 28, 2007
8:30am to 3:45 pm
Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York, NY
www.mashup.ypulse.com
To obtain the link to register as press, contact Carolyn Carson at either
carolyn@modernmediapartners.com or 631.668.4098.
You’ve read (or written) story after story about tweens gabbing away in acronyms on their cell phones, the Webkinz craze or how tweens are waddling around as penguins in a virtual world now owned by Disney. Are these sites safe? What about all of the marketing that takes place?
On September 28th, we invite you to go deeper into the world of tweens and technology.
The Ypulse Tween Mashup is a conference for media and marketing professionals covering how to digitally reach tweens (8-13) in ways that are safe, COPPA compliant and ethical.
Topics include:
* How traditional media brands (Cartoon Network, Weekly Reader, LEGO) create new digital products
* How to market to tweens with parental consent; age verification technology that’s working
* Why teaching media and marketing literacy to tweens is essential
* How independent upstarts (Whyville, Stardoll, Beacon Street Girls) grow through word of mouth, giving traditional brands a run for their money
* How the mobile industry is adapting to meet the needs of its new tween customers and their parents
* Hear from tweens themselves about what they like and dislike about the tech they consume
See a latest press release at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/08/prweb548011.htm.
YPulse has announced headline speakers with a Keynote from Neopets and Speakers from
kajeet, Cartoon Network, LEGO Group, Whyville and B*tween Productions.
Behind-the-Scenes Youth Media Education: Applications available now
Project SET is accepting applications from high school students to participate in Me in Me:dia, a 10 week behind-the-scenes media education program that begins in October. Project SET has worked with Frederick Douglass Academy VII in Brownsville, Brooklyn and is now expanding enrollment to other students throughout New York City.
Through a series of workshops, mentoring opportunities, and on-site training, Project SET better equips youth to become more civically engaged and active leaders in the media industry. Youth work on set of film and television productions and learn directly from professionals in the media industry as they create Public Service Announcements on issues in their communities.
For more information or to download the application, please visit
www.projectset.org
The application deadline is Friday September 14.
Questions? Please contact info@projectset.org or 718-344-9250.
2007-2008 Tribeca Youth Screening Series
Fall registration for the Tribeca Youth Screening Series is now open!
The series is a year-long presentation of films that serve NYC public school students and teachers with access to free, relevant and challenging films. Each screening is followed by a discussion, Q&A or a workshop. Additionally, Tribeca Film Institute has partnered with Arts Engine, who will provide a topically related Media That Matters Film Festival film, to be rviewed in classrooms preceding the screening.
Please see www.tribecafilminstitute.org/youth for more details on how teachers and public school classrooms can attend.