Greetings from EVC! We hope you enjoyed a summer full of creativity, exploration, and activism. We certainly did! We were super busy offering workshops for youth, educators and community members in neighborhoods here across New York City, as well as in Appalachia and East London. Here are the highlights.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
EVC’s PDP department had a jam packed schedule of programming this summer with week-long teacher institutes in New York City and in London, the launch of our We Are All Connected rural-urban youth media program supported by Mozilla Hive NYC Fund, and a youth filmmaking camp with Bronxworks Betances Community Center in the South Bronx. In addition, high school students and teachers from our “Youth Powered Change” project presented their action research curriculum and documentaries reporting on the problem of police brutality at the city-wide Transfer School Conference. Produced by students at HSEI and IDP in partnership with the Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Readiness, these three films were also broadcast on MNN’s Youth Channel 4 and 5 in August and September.
NY and Tennessee Students Cooling Off After A Hard Day’s Work at the Summer Media Camp
We kicked off the “We Are All Connected” pilot program with a week-long summer camp in the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee where four students from New York City lived and worked with four students from Tennessee to create a film and website on the local issues of opioid abuse and internet access. We will be celebrating the second phase of this project with a screening at EVC and Skype reunion with the Tennessee students on September 15th. As one EVC student said who has been writing letters to his new Tennessee friends since the summer camp, “I wish I could mail myself back to Tennessee!” The filmmaking camp at the Bronxworks Betances Community Center documented the beautification project at their neighboring St. Mary’s park and made a film about healthy food initiatives in the Bronx. Participants at our University of East London summer institute and the EVC site learned to incorporate social justice documentary production in their curriculum. The New York City teachers created “Divided We Stand”, an inquiry on the urgent topic of immigrant rights in the United States, while the London team produced “Regeneration: Building Whose Dream?” about gentrification and displacement in their local East London community.
YOUTH DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP
Youth Documentary Workshop Students Preparing for a Shoot
EVC youth producers in this summer’s Youth Documentary Workshop program produced a fifteen-minute documentary profiling the Geriatric Career Development program (GCD). The EVC project was supported by the Pinkerton Foundation with youth stipends provided by DYCD Summer Youth Employment and 1199’s Workforce 2000 program. They learned “on the job” by interviewing the program director and shooting verite footage. Their final interview was with an alum of the GCD program, now a CNA, who spoke about the sacrifices he made in order to complete the rigorous program: “I missed a lot of family birthdays but I made up my mind—I wanted be a CNA. My aunt has cancer, my mother has a bad knee. Being a healthcare professional is the best way to be there for my family.” With only 2 weeks left to finish their project, the EVC team found it daunting to come to agreement on how to edit down over 10 hours of footage into a coherent fifteen minute documentary. When their film premiered on August 11th at the 1199 Headquarters, one EVC youth producer explained, “When we were editing, I was really inspired by the GCD students who we interviewed. Here are people my age taking college courses and becoming nurses. They didn’t give up even when the program got stressful. Editing the movie was really hard but I didn’t want to give up. I’m glad we kept at it; I’m really proud of the movie.” For applications to EVC’s fall semester Youth Doc Workshop. Contact Gil Feliciano Gfeliciano@EVC.org and Jessie Levandov Jlevandov@evc.org
NEW MEDIA ARTS
NMA Students at Their Summer Launch Party
This summer’s New Media Arts (NMA) Program had much to celebrate during its launch party on August 10th. Over 60 students, interns and instructors proudly shared their youth-produced websites and remix videos on topics ranging from mass incarceration, to recycling, gentrification, educational equity, and teen pregnancy. With generous support from Digital Media Learning Fund in the New York Community Trust, we held summer workshops at EVC and 3 NYC Parks and Recreation Computer Resource Centers, in addition to a course on the campus of Bronx Community College through College Now. We are thrilled that18 EVC students earned early college credit through this new exciting partnership! During the launch party Q & A session, one of these students thanked her instructors telling them how valuable it was for her to practice college-level writing and conduct interviews with students, teachers, and parents for her project on education. “It prepared us for college because we had to write a personal essay and most students don’t get to do that until their senior year.” ExpandEd Schools made it possible for students from the our Spring NMA Workshop to gain important real world work experience this summer working as digital media teaching assistants at the five new media arts sites. We’re excited that a photo essay on the New Media Arts program is featured in the current issue of Youth Today which you can see here Youth Today OST Hub.
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The Educational Video Center is a non-profit youth media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video as a means to develop the artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change.
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