PROGRAMS
EVC’s student-centered programs place students’ own questions, problems, and community experiences at the center of their learning. Students strengthen their skills in documentary arts, critical literacy, civic engagement, and social emotional learning. Young people are transformed by this creative learning process, just as the community is transformed by viewing the media they create.
YOUTH DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP
A credit-bearing after school film production and leadership program
Young people learn to collaboratively film, edit, and produce award-winning documentary films about social justice issues that are impacting their lives, communities, and society as a whole.
Students earn credits towards graduation and get access to paid internship and mentorship opportunities.
NEW MEDIA ARTS APPRENTICESHIP
A credit-bearing after school multimedia production and work-based learning program
Students learn to collaboratively design websites, shoot photographs, and ‘remix’ documentaries from EVC’s archive of youth-produced social justice films. Youth earn credits towards graduation and receive paid summer jobs and mentorship opportunities.
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
A credit-bearing in-school youth instruction and teacher-training program
Both students and teachers learn how to collaboratively film, edit, and produce documentary films about social justice issues that are impacting their lives, communities, and society as a whole. Through training institutes and in-class coaching, teachers learn teaching strategies and practical skills to integrate student-led media production into their classes.
WE ARE ALL CONNECTED
An urban rural summer exchange and documentary production program
Young people from NYC and Appalachia live, work, and learn together to collaboratively produce documentary films and websites about social justice issues impacting their lives and communities to help bridge the urban rural divide.
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
In our classrooms, we are all learners and teachers. Our approach combines critical thinking, documentary storytelling, and social justice. Developed in collaboration with generations of young people producing documentaries, our teaching practices invite young people to realize their own power, tell stories, expose injustices, take and inspire action.
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Our methodology is rooted in:
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Paolo Friere’s popular education model and critical pedagogy, which intentionally centers young people who are systemically marginalized so that they can interrogate the power structures and systems which oppress them.
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Participatory Action Research so that the filmmaking is a democratic process -- our students choose the issues that impact their lives, and determine how these stories are told.
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Culturally Responsive Teaching that seeks to uphold all aspects of our students’ cultures - from belonging to the Beyhive to being Boricua.