Transmission Project

our VISTA member goals for 2009-2010 were: - Provide staff support to assist organizational members in convening and revitalizing the CAPAY Alumni Network. - Develop community partnerships and collaborations, including youth/community internship sites, to build sustainability of the program into future years. - Develop grant/funding proposals and enhance CAPAY’s funder networks in conjunction with CAPAY staff and Adult Advisory Board. - Organize grassroots fundraising events for CAPAY programs. - administer/maintain CAPAY’s website and Web 2.0 presence (e.g., updating Facebook, Youtube, Google maps, etc) while exploring possibilities for online revenue streams and other relevant sources of earned income. - Develop assessment and reflection tools with which to document short-and long-term impact of CAPAY program and project participation on youth participants, community members/organizations, and CAPAY alumni. Molly was successful in implementing Web 2.0 tools to support and streamline organizational communications. She took over the management of CAPAY’s communications, including CAPAY’s Facebooks and listserve. She worked closely with the CAPAY coordinator Tri Quach to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the new CAPAY website. This includes the development of CAPAY’s media portal, designed to gather Asian American media such as digital stories, blogs, and artist websites (including original CAPAY content). She also worked with one of the CAPAY youth to develop a city-wide blog for youth organizing. Molly made progress in initiating and nurturing long and short term partnerships with other organizations. This includes the promotional video she made with other UMass Boston students for MASAE, a local basketball team. She successfully planned and administered all of the CAPAY YouthLearn internships at other organizations, including UMass Boston’s Asian American Studies Program, BCNC, AACA, ATASK, AFH, and Close to Home. Molly re-established connections with CAPAY alumni, the Alumni Network, which has been meeting actively since June to develop fundraising initiatives and to provide planning assistance and support for the November 2010 CAPAY youth symposium. Molly developed several grant proposals that are pending review.

Molly’s organizing and facilitation with these other Asian American youth programs led to the creation of a Steering Committee (SC) representing the Asian American Civic Association’s Youth Center, the Asian Community Development Corporation’s A-VOYCE, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center’s YouLead, and the Chinese Progressive Association’s Chinese Youth Initiative, along with CAPAY. This is an unprecedented accomplishment in terms of Boston Asian American community youth capacity-building and provides an organizational framework to foster programmatic collaboration and coordination, shared research and advocacy, and joint grant submissions.

Jessica has used technology tools to facilitate organizational communication and information gathering/sharing at TCP. These tools included an Intranet, the Vienna newsreader and a del.icio.us account for the organization. This work has enabled TCP to stay on top of cutting edge issues in the field of youth and technology.

She has also made major contributions in researching, writing, editing and design work for some of our products. This has helped TCP achieve its mission of advocating for digital resources and access to benefit the nation’s 73 million children and youth, particularly those who are low-income or underserved.

Jessica has also completed several projects for CCTPG, working towards meeting the broader goal of advocating for all communities’ access to broadband and advanced technologies and the benefits they offer.

Working with several colleagues, Jessica helped create the new CCTPG Web site and edited, updated and posted a majority of the documents currently available. She uploaded the contacts currently in the CiviCRM and created an automated sign-up form for new members. She was also responsible for many listserv and Web site updates and helped with several outreach efforts, including a videoconference. She gathered information for an online map of CTCs and helped with CCTPG’s network restructuring.

One of the measurements of Jessica’s success was whether CCTPG won any legislative victories while she was serving. Of the four pieces of legislation CCTPG focused on last year, three of them passed.

In developing OLLIE’s digital distribution strategy, Gariet has achieved three major accomplishments.

First, Gariet brought the OLLIE program and Portland Community Media into the Youth Video Exchange Network (YVXN) as a steering partner. OLLIE’s participation in YVXN has allowed us to share broadcast quality student work with other youth media centers around the country, as well as acquire youth media content to broadcast on our own channels.

In parallel to his work with NYMAP, Gariet also researched and set up a blip.tv site for the OLLIE program. This site allows us to share our videos with others at any time, and in turn allows our visitors to post the videos on their websites and blogs.

Finally, Gariet developed a website for the project using the Drupal content management system. This site provides a comprehensive resource about the program for the communities we serve, and includes a searchable video database. Through his research and work with Drupal and blip.tv for our youth project, Gariet has set a course for the Media Center as a whole. Recently a staff member expressed that Gariet’s ability to explain the benefits and values of these technologies to others led to the media center to develop a digital distribution plan that incorporated the lessons he has learned. Gariet’s work has also had an impact on the larger community, including interesting and attracting a local foundation to provide operational funding for our project.