| California Voices: After-School Programs | | Print | |
 California Voices After-School Programs
California Voices is a service-learning participatory media program that trains young people to express their public voice and preserve their community’s legacy.
Through the California Voices “Intergenerational Digital Storytelling” component, young people are matched with elder role models who have made significant contributions to culture, community, and country. They work together in intergenerational teams to create short multimedia videos highlighting this important community history as told through the personal stories of these unsung heroes. These digital stories combine a narrative, images, and special effects into 3-5 minute videos highlighting a “defining moment” in the storyteller’s life. These stories share not just the facts, but the personal thoughts, values and feelings of the storyteller.
View past stories online at www.californiavoices.org.
Through the California Voices “Youth Voice” component, young people are trained in social media skills to: identify issues in their community; create media expressing their perspectives; and foster online dialogue and collaboration with others outside of their community to share their perspectives and devise solutions. Beginning with the identification of the biggest issue that affects them in their school, neighborhood, or community, young people create short public service announcements and informational videos highlighting the topic and soliciting perspectives from people of different backgrounds. As young people premiere these stories at school functions, community premieres and share their perspectives with the world via the Internet, they continue to build their public voice. California Voices is currently in operation at over 25 community centers and schools in the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Metropolitan Region. During the school year, teachers and students are trained and supported by CMC offices in Fresno and Sacramento to implement California Voices as an after-school program at middle and high schools. During the “Summer of Service”, young people are recruited to participate at community centers in their neighborhoods. CMC creates partnerships with schools and community centers that serve high poverty areas, typically in urban and rural settings where young people have historically been excluded from access to participatory media opportunities. CMC creates partnerships with schools that bring California Voices into areas that have qualified for 21st Century After-School grants, ASES funding, and other state and federal programs focused on under-performing and poverty-stricken schools. Partnerships with city departments and school districts bring summer programs to community centers in urban settings defined by their concentration of poverty. In 2009 and beyond, CMC will expand California Voices to additional regions of the state, continuing to focus on young people in communities that lack access to participatory media opportunities, bringing them into the fray of this new medium in a way that empowers them to share their ideas and perspectives with each other and the greater public. |
