Transmission Project

Shaneka served as the lead in hosting several major youth centered events, including the Intel regional teen summit and the college tour. Recently Shaneka has worked in areas of project and grant development and assisted in managing several major programs and helping with the outreach and marketing of our programs.

In her Second service year Shaneka continues to work closely with the teenage youth and is currently hosting a Girls program for teens ages 13 to 18. The youth are currently involved in forming their own T-shirt corporation from the ground up. Shaneka has helped the youth write business plans, design images for print, and worked towards building an entrepreneurial mindset in the youth. Shaneka continues to develop technology related programs that have youth learning Photo Manipulation using Adobe Photoshop, Animation using Macromedia Flash, Video Production using Sony Vegas and other programs that engage the youth.

Ray spent the year coming up with ideas for the workshops, creating the materials necessary to lead the workshops, and organizing the instructors of the workshops. Workshop topics included digital storytelling, silent movie-making, audio dubbing, and 3D imaging. Ray learned how create (and advertise) workshops that are appealing to teens and eventually had regular attendance at them. Students in our program earn a free computer system to take home. Our policy states that if they attend 5 workshops, they’ll earn enough extra credit to earn a year of free internet access at home. While nearly all of our students earn the home computer, many students weren’t able to take advantage of the free internet since they weren’t getting the opportunity to attend workshops. With Ray’s help, a great number of students were able to attend the workshops that are required in order to earn home internet. While having a home computer is valuable to our students, without internet they remain at a disadvantage when it comes to completing homework and projects for school.

Now that Ray’s term has ended we are happy to have a whole library of workshop ideas and materials at the ready. Because everything has already been developed, it is much easier for us to recruit volunteers to lead our workshops, since it no longer requires a significant time commitment on their part. We are pleased that we were able to, and will be able to continue to, offer so many workshops to our students and that they may earn internet access at home.

Richard assisted the education department with youth outreach curriculum development efforts, developing innovative ways to expose community youth to digital audio and video technology. He developed interest surveys for school and community info. gathering and assisted with the implementation of an open house for CMC Wealthy neighborhood residents. Richard was a member of the SMART Festival planning team, an international student media arts festival organized and hosted by GRCMC..

A particular story that stands out is the use of audio resources and curriculum developed by Richard: There was a young man named Patrick who was 14 years of age and lived across the street from Media Center with his Mom and 6 brothers and sisters. He would drop by the media center often after school. He learned a variety of video production skills and produced a few short studio productions for air on community television, but nothing seemed to really stick with him. One day we asked him to produce and record a rap that could be used for promotion of the Mollie youth program. You could see the excitement in his eyes at that suggestion. In a matter of weeks he had the rap written out and beats to use with it created on the computer. Using the tools and resources Richard had collected and organized, we were able to both find a passion for this young man and help promote our programs and organization.

• Michelle helped to increase the time MCA/School aged childcare program (SACC) is doing educational activities in the lab, particularly around a lesson plan for the after school on how to create their own newsletter using the creativity and technology in the Cyber Y.

• Michelle has completed a three-week introduction to computers course that had five participants.

• During her first month, Michelle helped to write a grant to partner with the Ecumenical Social Action Council to do a graphics training project with youth. It is hoped that two out of the 12 youth will take a leadership role to make this project happen next year.

• Michelle has been working closely with other tax sites, staff, and the CyberY Developer to make this a successful project.

• Weight Watchers—met with the program to discuss how they could use the CyberY.

• Timothy Smith Network—working to secure and implement the Kinetic City program.

Brandi has been working with CompuMentor and Citizens Housing Corporation for six months. In that time she has provided logistical and planning support, managing a number of CTN workshops including YouthLearn, Writing Great Grant Proposals, Amazing Success Stories, and Youth Media: Digital Storytelling & Animation. Brandi has also been actively involved in the Community Technology Network Steering Committee as a member and secretary. In this role, she has been responsible for keeping members informed about upcoming events and meetings as well as dissemination of meeting minutes and materials. In addition, Brandi has maintained the CTN Bay Area website at http://www.ctnbayarea.org. She has overseen the redesign of the website with volunteers from OPNet’s web design students. In her work as computer technician and consultant at Citizens Housing Corporation she has set up and maintained two computer labs in low-income housing units.

Ria has done a good job of connecting with schools and organizations to
create alliances for projects and for recruitment. Ria hasalso been wonderfully effective at recruiting guest speakers and field trip hosts for GGD.

Ria has done a wonderful job of preparing program information for the public, including the fall GGD update (sent to funders and partner agencies) and the December graduation flier. Because the program’s outreach has been so successful, there has not been a need for the extensive outreach we have had in the past.

I believe Ria’s work on program curriculum and her work in the classroom will be one of her greatest legacies in the program. She has developed strong curricula and has led successful, creative classes. She has developed curriculum for and taught the fall and spring classes and has developed a proposal for a summer video program. Her teaching style with the students has been steadily improving, and her comfort level and ability in working with students in and out of the classroom has been a pleasure to watch grow.

Other ongoing projects that Abby was crucial to the success of included:

- “Project Safe Neighborhoods” (U.S. Department of Justice) in which Abby facilitated the efforts of local youths at neighborhood associations and community centers in writing, shooting, performing, and editing their own Public Service Announcements (PSAs) on the subject of gun violence prevention.

- Wedgwood Christian Services of West Michigan. Similar to PSN, the Wedgwood project involved providing at-risk teens with the tools, training, and means of transmission to create their own mini documentaries and PSAs focusing on substance abuse prevention.

Both of these long term projects have been very successful due in large part to Abby’s commitment, diligence, professionalism, expertise, and willingness to work with at risk teens.

Abby’s final, and perhaps most lasting project, done in conjunction with previous VISTA/Americorps volunteers Laura Craig-Bennett, Amy McKenzie, and Jennifer Harris, has been the editing of a four-episode series of documentaries entitled “Girls to Governors” which commemorates the role of Michigan women in politics. Funded locally by the Nokomis foundation of Grand Rapids, the VISTA/Americorps producers of “Girls to Governors” seized upon the election in 2001 of Michigan’s first female governor, to examine the emerging role of women in local, state, and national politics and public service.

The editing of this series was the capstone event in and outstanding year of service provided by VISTA volunteer Abby Balazs. The VISTA program should be very proud to have Abby as an alumnae just as we are proud to have had her as an employee and team mate.

Most of Michael’s focus has been on developing curricula for media classes for youth.

He has done extensive work on curriculum for youth using digital music mixing programs like Hip Hop eJay and Acid Music. He is also working on curricula for youth for Web design and graphics design. He is in the process of finalizing his curriculum materials and training a replacement staff person.

Michael is also developing a curriculum for the computer club up and helping to teach classes.

Michael has developed training materials for youth in New Horizons and is also teaching classes. Michael has also been assisting with technical support and is still in the process of further developing our documentation around this. Because we cancelled our summer camp this year, Michael was not able to develop any curriculum for the camp.

Gregory has designed an exciting new curriculum as well as a long-term multimedia plan for the school. Students truly enjoy and benefit from these classes and we look forward to building on this aspect of our program in the future. The students welcome the creative outlets these classes provide as a balance to the MS office applications and the technical computer repair classes we offer. As previously reported, this instruction has been given not only to students but to staff as well.

In the web design class students continue to work on non-profit site projects under Gregory’s advisory oversight. Several students are now independently building and maintaining websites for neighborhood non-profit organizations.

Gregory has almost completed the Spanish mirror of our bi-lingual website and he remains solely responsible for the web presence and staff accounts. He continues to work with staff and students in completing and maintaining CAMINOS’ website. (Please see http://www.caminossf.org)

In August 2002, Kristin assisted the organization and youth in preparation for its Street-to-Street block party/media installation event by co-designing an installation with Street-Level’s Girls Group participants, and co-producing two video pieces for Street-Level’s outdoor public broadcast/performance of youth media work in September 2002.

During the fall of 2002, Kristin accompanied staff and youth representatives to the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture conference in Seattle, WA, and worked with staff to develop a searchable database for our collection of youth videos, as well as create a system for the management and tracking of videos distributed to film festivals and screenings.