Sat Nov 11 2017 16:18:24 GMT+0000 (UTC)
In early fall a few Hive Chicago members were awarded small travel stipends to attend Mozfest 2017 in London. Mozfest is a three-day celebration and unconference that brings together hackers, data scientists, educators and internet aficionados. Hive Chicago was well represented, even a few students were able to attend this year. Some of the travelers share their experience, what they learn and some shareable resources. Enjoy!
Lesley Etherley- Contexture Media
Lesley immersing herself in augmented reality
MozFest 2017 had a great lineup! My personal interests led me to focus on Digital Inclusion and Web literacy sessions. There was a nice balance of tech innovation, media literacy, and open learning experiences. I slipped on an Augment Reality headset with holographic figurine overlays that really pulled at my sense of space and volume, much more than typical flat Augmented overlays. The highlight workshop for me was the Aquarius Project: The Hunt for meteorites in Lake Michigan, led by Adler Teens, Chris Bresky, really demystified communication pitches and rapid design prototyping. “Yay for Failure!” is now my mantra. Definitely sensory overload and I’m still unpacking my memory, but overall it was an amazing opportunity to connect with people doing amazing work and I’m definitely integrating these experiences into the work I’m doing in Chicago.
Nathalie Rayter- Shedd Aquarium
2017 has been a whirlwind – every day, there’s so much information to sort through and keep up with – and as a youth-serving practitioner, I have been particularly concerned with building the skills and knowledge of my students so that they’re better equipped to consume, analyze, and create their own content. Thus, I was very grateful to be at this year’s MozFest. So many of the folks in attendance this year focused their inquiry, both in and out of sessions, on how to combat misinformation by educating and empowering web users. I went to a session about an open-source curriculum that aims to empower teens with the news and web literacy skills they need to become strong consumers, producers, and distributors of media and news online, and I actually hope to use pieces of it in Adler teen programs in the coming weeks. It was also great to get to attend a Shed session exploring how this stream of misinformation intersects with Mozilla’s Internet health categories and talk with people from across the globe about how approaches to addressing these challenges must be contextualized for discrete communities. Overall, I’m really looking forward to working with my team and others in Hive Chicago to take on some of the specific challenges we explored at MozFest here in our local contexts.
Katrina Pavlik- Communities in Schools of Chicago
I’m not a tech person; I’m a people person. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself since my adolescence when computer programming was proclaimed boring and structured and dumb. A few decades later, my tune has changed following this weekend’s 8th annual MozFest, a conference hosted by the Mozilla Foundation for coders and designers, artists and educators to discuss ways to sustain a healthy and open internet and use it for the good of our collective future. The three big ideas that really hit me over the weekend were: 1) We are all hackers 2) We all need to care about a healthy and open internet, and 3) We need all of us to make the future work for all of us.
See Katrina’s full share out here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-things-i-learned-mozfest-non-techie-view-tech-katrina-pavlik/
Marnie Boyd- Chicago State University
BE4ST Present during the science fair session
The 2017 Mozfest was an amazing opportunity for my students and me to internationally
connect with some of the most amazing STEM professionals.students presented their project on autonomous parallel parking. This project is a Ten80 Education Competition challenge that the students work on during the academic year at Chicago State University. Using a 1:10 scale rc car and the aurduino platform, the BE4ST students code the rc car to travel an oval shaped terrain and parallel park. BE4ST did an amazing job during the science fair session presenting the autonomous parallel parking project. The student enjoyed sharing their project with others and networking with professional. The team was well received by the Mozfest audience.
Sydney Williams- BE4ST Student
As a high student, my main goal is to become a world class engineer. Being giving the opportunity to not only showcase my team’s projects and research, but also learning and speaking to fascinating and talented people from all over the world is extremely humbling. We presented a version of this Ten80 project during the Science Fair event and I was shocked to see all of the people interested in programming language, environmental conservation, and advanced automotive technologies. This common interest has allowed me to speak to engineers, computer scientist, and even New York NSBE chairman.
Fri Oct 20 2017 15:17:01 GMT+0000 (UTC)
This is a guest post by Maddox Guerilla (Youth Leader) and Carlos Pareja (Media History Timeline Coordinator) of Global Action Project, a Hive Member Organization.
In the year 2017, seeds of revolution, rooted in the spirit of movement leaders like Martin Luther King and Dolores Huerta, are being harvested by the digital and net-based present day movements of black, brown, and TLGBQ lives in America.
Netroots Nation, the annual gathering of liberal bloggers, independent media makers and online organizers, connected fellow activists, educators and storytellers. Global Action Project, a social justice youth media organization, and a Hive member, attended several sessions and events aligned with our mission and met new allies in youth organizing. G.A.P.’s contingent also reconnected with longtime partners in media policy advocacy work within the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net).
Netroots Nation, was held in Atlanta, Georgia this past August. Steeped in civil rights history, Atlanta is an inspiring city, where one can tour the childhood home of Martin Luther King, Jr. and walk through Sweet Auburn, a neighborhood of black-owned businesses and organizations dating back to the Jim Crow era. Within this backdrop of freedom and struggle, the panels, screenings, and plenaries of Netroots, seemed to authenticate the critical need for convenings to share, grow and build. As white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia that same weekend for a rally of hate that brought violence and death, the urgency for progressive voices and community resistance has never been more apparent.
Protecting Students and their Families from Deportation a workshop led by Cesar Romero Perez from the American Federation of Teachers and Mateo Guerrero-Tabares of Make the Road, served as a know your rights training for new immigrants and the youth workers that serve them. Presenting horrifying numbers that starkly detail the objective reality of 2.5 million deportees under the Obama administration and the start of a new administration trumpeting an anti-Immigrant platform, the workshop brought in subjective, personal stories of families living in constant fear of separation. Living in these terrifying times when formulating back-up plans for worst case scenarios is too common, the tools and resources offered are invaluable for immigrant families and something tangible to share with our communities back home in New York.
Film screenings were also a major attraction for an organization engaged in the craft of visual storytelling. In darkened rooms, messages of resistance painted in shadow and light, reminded the audience that every generation has a responsibility to be a voice for their time and challenge the repressive forces of racism, classism, homophobia and other forms of oppression. This theme was prevalent in the film, Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities. The film, directed by Stanley Nelson, highlighted the resilience of black lives in America and how our forebears fought for our education so we can stand where we do today.
This light of resistance was also apparent in the film, Dolores, about Dolores Huerta, the often unheralded but influential labor organizer, civil rights worker and co-founder of United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. An inspiring documentary that uplifts the life of a powerful leader, the film also illustrates how media plays a significant role in how we see our heroes and consequently how we see ourselves. For the most part, mainstream narratives are experienced through the lens of white, cis-gender males, which may explain why Cesar Chavez is well known but few people have ever heard of Dolores Huerta, the backbone of the farmers movement, a tireless organizer who continues to inspire movement leaders to the present day.
Post screening discussion with Dolores Huerta.
Resistance takes many forms and sessions highlighting a more humorous approach at communicating struggle through cultural organizing included The Language of Resistance: Messaging and Content Creation to Combat Islamophobia. One of the panelists, Tanzilla “Taz” Ahmed, of the podcast #GoodMuslimBadMuslim, produced with Zahra Noorbakhshuses, uses comedy and art to combat the “fear Industrial complex.” Taz conveys that “as a brown person you internalize so many microaggressions everyday.” What she and Zahra do is turn these awkward moments into sharp and funny material for their podcast through segments like “Ask a Muslim” and a Muslim Voting Guide to help counter intimidation and racial profiling at the polls.
In the panel, A Whole New Woooorld: Organizing in Pop Culture Communities, fan-based communities for superheroes, science fiction and fantasy become sites for organizing towards greater inclusiveness and cultural equity. Cayden Mak, Executive Director of 18MillionRising.Org, a digital civic engagement hub for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, refers to a recent campaign his group organized around “racebending.” Urging corporations like Marvel to cast actors of color in roles for historically white Superhero characters “and make programming where fans of color see themselves.”
Plenaries at Netroots also became stages for protest in the Georgia gubernatorial campaign, as Black Lives Matter activists disrupted a speech by one of the candidates, former Democratic State Representative, Stacey Evans. As soon as Evans, who is white, began her speech activists stood in front of her holding up signs equating Evans to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and chanting “Trust Black Women!” Protesters appeared outraged by what they saw as Evans’ support for private school vouchers, an expansion of charter schools and other education issues.
Sunday arrived with the closing of another year of Netroots Nation. The different trainings, panels and screenings selected by Global Action Project each demonstrated models and practices that could support our work as social justice youth media organizers.
Gatherings like Netroots can help attendees by providing a space to make connections, build alliances and strengthen community. We’re hopeful what we’ve learned will help our organization in the long path of struggle that all progressives will have in the coming years of Trump.
Maddox & Carlos visit the Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta, Georgia
The post Exploring Political and Cultural History, and Possibilities: Global Action Project at Netroots Nation appeared first on Hive NYC.
Wed Oct 18 2017 16:52:12 GMT+0000 (UTC)
Hi, Everyone! My name is Kelsey Galante, and I am one of the STEM Facilitators for the Science Digests program this year (October-April). This is my first year working with Project Exploration, and I am very excited to be part of this awesome team! Everyone with Project Exploration is ready for an amazing year filled with learning and growth! Before I started with Project Exploration I was a classroom teacher in North Lawndale at a high school teaching math. I’m look forward to bringing my experiences into these fun programs. Science Digests is a new program that is focused on bringing the whole family into the fun. We’ll have interactive experiments led by real STEM professionals! Project Exploration is fortunate to join with Chicago Youth Centers to put on these meaningful monthly programs. I can’t wait to meet you at our Kickoff event coming up in October!
Sat Oct 14 2017 04:00:27 GMT+0000 (UTC)
The Anti Cruelty Society
Multipurpose Room, 1st Floor
Thursday, October 19, 9:00am to 12:00pm
If you are arriving prior to 9am, please use the Plymouth Court (west side) entrance.
Skip Ahead:
October Meetup Agenda & Webcast
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- 9:00 AM – Connections
- 9:30 AM – Annoucments
- 10:00 AM – Moonshot Highlight
- 10:45 AM – #hivebuzz
- 11:00 AM – Working Groups
RSVP to join us for our October Meet-up from 9am to 12pm at The Anti Cruelty Society.
In addition, come to this meet-up to:
- Engage our current Moonshot areas.
- This month we’ll be highlighting:
- School Hive
- Community Engagement
- Activate solutions to shared challenges
- Create next steps for Moonshot challenge areas.
#hivebuzz: Share program or project updates
Click here to learn about how you can Share & Lead discussions or projects at the meetup.
During the meetup anyone can have 60 seconds to announce an event, program or opportunity available to others and then 10-15 minutes to lead small discussion/breakout groups to share more details and information about your update with curious attendees. If you are interested, you’ll need to let us know in advance. Please submit your information via the online form by end of the day, on the Tuesday EOB before the meetup.
Moonshots Working Groups: lead discussion and project groups
Have a project? Want to lead a discussion? In advance of the Meetup: let us know if you are interested in leading one of these groups:
Moonshot discussion groups: You or a representative can volunteer to lead a discussion about a project idea that connects to a Moonshot; either how it serves to demonstrate challenges related to the area, or how it demonstrates a solution to those challenges. Discussion groups allow you to invite input from other Hivers.
Moonshot project groups: in this area of activity, you would present the project and pieces of work or tasks that others can help with. This might be drafting, designing, communicating, reviewing, etc. The goal would be to help others contribute to the work. In this format you can facilitate an engaging share-out of your project while also getting something done! Ideally, this is work that could be brought back to meetups monthly.
September Meetup Recap
The September meetup was amazing. Although we bid farewell to Operations Coordinator Ann Marie, we welcomed the addition of new projects within our portfolio! These projects received funding from round 2 of the 2017 funding cycle. Funded Project Showcases are instrumental in fostering collaborative environments by sharing learning experiences, best practices and inviting partners. If you are interested in learning more about currently funded projects- check out the Showcase Slide deck it includes project and contact info for all 2017 Round2 Funded Projects Showcased last month. Click here to view the Showcase Slide deck.
In addition, Think Tank and Quality of Life shared updated information about their moonshot initiatives. Check out last months slide deck to see what you missed!
#hivebuzz: Upcoming Events
Upcoming Hive Community Convening
Fri Oct 06 2017 14:33:53 GMT+0000 (UTC)
Within the midst of curriculum development, youth recruitment, and program planning, network members will be welcoming some familiar faces to their fall programs. Returning teens is a sure sign that young people have meaningful experiences in youth development spaces through unique learning opportunities, relationship building with their peers and educators, and through their drive to explore new ways to advance their work and leadership. This presents an exceptional moment for youth development organization to identify opportunities for youth leaders to engage deeper in the mission they believe in. On September 26th, the Hive NYC learning Network gathered at Partnership for Afterschool Education (PASE) to learn about successful approaches that Hive members use to effectively cultivate youth leadership in their programs and in their organizations. The purpose of this discussion was not to prescribe an approach or theory but to present multiple lenses on how instituting youth led spaces.
As a network, we dove deeper into exploring how integrating youth leadership practices can support member’s organizational mission and goals (ex.improve program development and offerings, partnership development, project management, and advancing community engagement etc.) It was discussed that in order to provide intentional opportunities for youth leadership, there needs to be an organization wide alignment that commits to integrating authentic youth input and engagement – this means a shift in what we perceive young people’s roles to be in our organizations and our expectations of them. Members collectively identified what actions and considerations need to be made to integrate a youth leadership model into organizational structures:
- Intentionality between outward facing and inward facing youth leadership. Organizations should identify where youth involvement makes the most sense depending on their capacity, understanding the potential of each. This could be a combination of outward facing (ex. helping to create opportunities to external audience through events, media, recruitment etc) nd inward facing engagement (ex. developing programs, hiring, board seat etc).
- Youth leaders must be recognized as equal contributors to the mission. Youth in our programs are often committed to promoting member’s work to their communities and deserve respect in their ability to carry on the mission. This also paves the way for cultivating youth as future colleagues in our organizations and within the field.
- Creating an intentional holistic space where young people can see beyond their capacity and can be supported moving towards their goals. The importance and realness of in and out of program space (3rd space) – builds safe and brave engagement to build trusting and supportive relationships to cultivate leaders. This process can be difficult, we need to make sure youth take care of themselves.
- Youth leadership development is a youth development program. We can use our understanding of how we create an intentional space for our programs and similar practices to cultivate youth leadership models in our work. Integrating youth involvement takes time and commitment. Consider the steps it takes to support young people’s empowerment building to reach a goal set in programs, to learn a process, to accomplish a project.
We invited two Hive member organizations, the Bklyn Public Library and Global Action Project, to share a snapshot of the youth leadership models they employ in their work. We wanted to take this opportunity to learn about members’ unique practices, understanding challenges and solutions to uphold a successful youth led environment.
Erin Shaw, Director of Brooklyn Cultural Adventures Program, shared on behalf of The Bklyn Public Library (BPL). BPL launched the Bklyn Library Youth Council, modeled after NYC Service Youth Leadership Council. With the intention of establishing more opportunities for youth engagement, it was important for BPL not to deduce what and how young people would become involved with the library and therefore developed a youth council that led the process of proposing engagement events and opportunities to outreach to youth communities (ex. Bklyn Urban Art Jamm). BPL collaborates with their youth leaders to develop and offer a variety of opportunities for youth based on their interests, academic and professional needs, exploring leadership roles with their peers and within their communities. In Today’s Teens and Tomorrow’s Techies (T4 Program), young people explore the capacity for leadership by building their technology based expertise to support their community’s learning. The T4 program trains young people to serve as technology specialists that prepares them to share knowledge with community members across other library branches. The youth council also supports BPL with leading research projects and playing expert roles within their communities – In this work, they work with the library to identify how to get more internet access to the communities that really need it. Visit the link for Erin’s SlideDeck.
Karina Hurtado, Community Media in Action Coordinator, shared a spotlight on behalf of Global Action Project (GAP). GAP’s leadership development process has been engrained throughout their media production programs, where young people collectively lead the production process in the Youth Breaking Borders and Supafriends programs. The youth leadership model that GAP employs is rooted in their intended social justice impacts: youth development – building a collaborative space to work with each other, media production – reflective of their political experiences that are tied to larger social justice work, and political education – creating social impact and consciousness raising by connecting to movement building. GAP is dedicated to building power and agency with the communities they work with: immigrant, undocumented youth, trans, and gender nonconforming youth. One particular way they do this is by developing community norms to establishing youths power, building space collectively. This accountability to hold space is shared by young people, educators, and GAP Staff – leveling the playing field. GAP’s leadership pipeline is built into organizational structure, providing opportunities for young people to have the option to advance their organizational leadership. Young people who attend their production programs could connect with the outreach and distribution of their work: creating curriculum, facilitating screenings, train the trainers, and supporting partners in building media projects of their own. The youth at GAP also play a vital role in building and realizing a vision at GAP that has large impact. They believe that it is crucial to involve youth in organizational decision making particularly being able to shape what happens in the organization, what type of programs exist, and how this works stay relevant in the media landscape as well as responding to changing community needs. Visit the link for Karina’s SlideDeck.
In the overall discussion, members felt that it was important to identify challenges and barriers to establish youth leadership approaches at their organization. Members would like to continue working with fellow network members to find solutions:
- Staff capacity to implement a youth-led initiative – varying levels of challenges from lack of space, budget constraints, and minimized staffing structures.
- How can organizations build capacity to institute youth leadership strategies with more transient youth communities? How can models shared align to scale and needs of different youth populations (ex. homeless and incarcerated youth etc.)
- Understanding staff needs in order to cultivate youth leadership – identifying professional development that can provide tools for cultivating leadership, how to maintain organizationally when staff with this knowledge/know how transition out.
- Identifying effective ways to measure short term and long term impacts of providing youth leadership opportunities in our organizations – identifying evaluation measure that can help track where young people take these skills.
Although challenges exist, the strengths and need for building a youth led environment outweighs these challenges. Members agree that in order to effectively provide quality programming and experiences to the young people, there needs to be room to adjust how we intentionally involve them in creating their own learning spaces, their opportunities for growth, and their pathways towards larger social impact. Members discussed an aspiration they have in supporting youth leaders to be the ones who take over their organization, become the educators and innovators shifting the work to a new era and with their communities at the center of this work.
At the beginning and tail end of our network gathering, we dedicated time for network members to connect and share fall updates, program and employment opportunities, events, and resources.
RESOURCES
- Building a Pipeline for Justice: Understanding Youth Organizing and the Leadership Pipeline: by Shawn Ginwright explores how youth organizing is an effective entry point for a more sustainable, long-term progressive, social justice movement. Positive youth development and youth organizing strategies that support leadership development within a spectrum of civic engagement and youth organizing. Also explores how move away from tokenism to authentic youth engagement. Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing – Mission is to increase increase resources to the field of youth organizing and promote the leadership of low-income youth of color in social justice organizing.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Eyebeam is moving to Bushwick! Looking to connect with local organizations to build community and partnerships. If you know any rad orgs to connect, send info to Lauren Gardner <lauren.gardner@eyebeam.org> at Eyebeam.
COMMUNITY/ACTION
YOUTH PROGRAMS/EVENTS
OPPORTUNITIES
- Tribeca Film Institute is hiring educators in media and writing to work with youth in detention centers. The job posting is attached to this email.
- Tribeca will also be hosting a professional development training retreat on Connected Learning in Incarcerated Spaces on November 3rd and 4th. Contact Katherine Cheairs <cheairs.katherine02@gmail.com> at TFI for more details.
- Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is looking for women mentors for GOALS internship/mentorship program focused on STEM/Education. Contact Shay Saleem <ssaleem@intrepidmuseum.org> for more details.
- American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) are on the search to fill an Earth Science Educator position. Contact Nick Martinez <nmartinez@amnh.org> for more details.
- The LAMP is looking for Media Literacy Educators. You can find job posting here, or contact Zenzele Johnson <zen@thelamp.org> for more details.
- Reel Works is hiring for multiple positions – follow the links for job postings on Screenwriting Instructor and Filmmaker in Residence positions.
If there are any other opportunities you’d like to share with the rest of the network, please send an email to the Hive NYC Listserv. You can also post opportunities and community updates to Hive NYC’s Slack Channel. Not part of Slack, you can sign up by visiting https://hivenyc.slack.com/signup.
The post September Hive Member Meetup: Youth Leadership appeared first on Hive NYC.
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