teens

Youth Health Empowerment Project (Y-HEP)is a project of Philadelphia FIGHT that offers a comprehensive range of health promotion and youth development programs using a harm reduction approach to at-risk youth.

Dina Mendros is a member of Temple University's Women's Film & Video Collective and recently completed Temple's Master's program in Anthropology. A former writer for the Philadelphia City Paper, she is currently at work on a video documentary about a New York school for cross-dressing.

Roxana Walker-Canton is a filmmaker, author, professor and television host who currently works as visiting professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT.

The idea for Princeton University's Princeton Atelier was sparked by novelist and Professor Toni Morrison's experiences collaborating on a song cycle, Honey and Rue, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for opera star Kathleen Battle. That project brought her together with André Previn who scored the music for the piece. In the Atelier program, Professor Morrison tries to capture the same excitement this collaborative experience offered her. The Atelier brings together on campus guest artists from different media for an intensive, in-residence collaborative effort with each other and Princeton's faculty and students. The focus of the Atelier is on the process of creating a work of art rather than on the finished product, and guest artists bring to campus an idea they want to create, explore, and develop. The "SOKS - Save Our Kids " videotape was produced in an Atelier directed by Louis Massiah and facilitated by Princeton students.

The "SOKS" program works to further community identification and provide high quality mentoring, recreation, and learning opportunities for young males in the Witherspoon area of Princeton, New Jersey.

Perlson began making documentary and experimental video in Philadelphia in the late 1980's. She is a founding member of the Termite TV Collective, an ongoing swarm devoted to the creation of alternative media. Her award-winning collective and individual work has been broadcast on PBS and cable, exhibited nationally in museums including MOMA (NYC) and the New Museum, and shown at a wide range of festivals. She has an MFA in Film/Media Arts from Temple University, and has taught at the university level for the past decade. She is currently a mother/artist in Medford, MA, where her life sequences between family, community, art and teaching is always subject to interruption.

H.E.R.O. (Helping to Energize and Rebuild Ourselves) was organized to assist women, primarily single African-American mothers and their children, to become self-sufficient. H.E.R.O. works with residents in the Tioga-Nicetown section of Philadelphia, and sponsors a teen leadership group, coordinates community meetings, and is establishing an education and training center in North Philadelphia.

Hébert Peck Jr. is an independent television producer. He has created television series, short form documentaries and web based projects for Rutgers University Television Network, a statewide closed circuit cable television and broadband Internet system. These programs air internationally through the ReseachChannel. Peck is the producer of Philadelphia Stories, a 13-hour series of documentaries and short films exploring the people, the places and things that make up the rich fabric of Philadelphia. Peck’s personal work, including the award winning video essay Little Hébert, has been broadcast on PBS and screened at festivals nationally. For eight years Peck managed the operation of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia. He completed one term as the co-president on the Board of Directors of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) and has served on an advisory capacity in such areas as film, video and multimedia production funding for the Rockefeller Foundation, the Independent Television Services (ITVS), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).

Miyoshi Smith is a media artist whose credits include two major radio series for national and international distribution: First and Last Words, a poetry series hosted by writer Sonia Sanchez, featuring Essex Hemphill, Larry Duckette and Linh Dinh; and Even the Sounds Are Blue, a musical series hosted by vocalist/composer Cassandra Wilson and featuring Michel Rosewoman, Craigh Harris and David Murray.

Centro Nueva Creation's mission is to transform their neighborhood by working with youth and families to create a better community. They believe that the assets of West Kensington outweigh the problems and that the area's youth and families have incredible resources for change. Although our community is often called "The Badlands" by the media, they like to promote it as "The Goodlands," a name more reflective of its current reality as a place where dramatic change is possible.

The Sedgwick Cultural Center, located in Mt. Airy, the heart of Philadelphia's Historic Northwest, creates an experience that enriches the lives of individuals and of the many communities it serves. The Center's broad spectrum of performing and visual arts programs brings together people of all ages and backgrounds and gives voice and venue to both local and national artists. Drawing on teen jazzophiles from both the city and the suburbs, the Teen Jazz Workshop lovingly spotlighted in the video is one of the Sedgwick programs that create a community of artists to celebrate and advance one of the region's rich musical traditions.

Hunter Elementary School is a North Philadelphia based elementary school that educates a little over 600 students from kindergarten through 8th grade. Each summer, college interns, ceramists and high school teaching assistants load up the Clay Studio's Claymobile with tools and clay and visit area community centers, teen detention centers, schools, summer camps and social service shelters that cannot afford clay classes. The program is funded by churches, local charities, and partially by the host sites.

Montessori Genesis II (MGII) was founded in 1976 by sixteen low-income Black families. The children of these families had had a very successful Montessori pre-school experience at the Early Learning Center in the Mantua section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These parents wanted their children to continue enjoying a high quality education during their elementary years. But there was no nearby elementary school prepared to follow up on the Montessori education that had been so successful.

The group of sixteen families joined together to take on this challenge. They solicited the help of two Religious of the Assumption nuns who were trained Montessori teachers to instruct their children and started their own school, Montessori Genesis II. Serving as something of a magnet, Montessori Genesis II now draws students not only from the surrounding community, but from throughout the Philadelphia area such as North Philadelphia, Germantown, Greater Northwest Philly and beyond. The quality of the education and personal growth afforded the students at MGII is such that when they leave, they can go out and successfully navigate the waters of all levels of higher education and post-academic life.

The student video makers who participated in this 2005 Documentary History Project for Youth production are: Ahmadu Ekpaji (Philadelphia Mennonite High School), Tahirah Garrett (Germantown Settlement Charter), Kerry Gilbert (homeschooled), Lee Givhan (Central High School), Hannah Horwitz (Upper Darby High School), Brett Johnson (Roxborough High School), Alyssa Kreilick (Springfield Township High School) and Sophavy Phuong (Bodine High School for International Affairs).

Deborah Rudman is Media Coordinator for Drexel University Television (DUTV), an access channel providing diverse cultural programming. She has collaborated in all phases of the video production process, including curating and producing Through the Lens, a showcase of independent work for WYBE. She guided Scribe Video Center's Documentary History Project for Youth in both 2004 and 2005 in her role as project facilitator and instructor.

Rodney Whittenberg is president of Melodyvision, a music and video production studio and community service and education provider. A composer, producer, songwriter, and educator, Rodney has developed a variety of music and art education programs for youth, adults, and senior citizens. He has taught at Temple University, the University of the Arts, and Drexel University and is an active member on the board of the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP), the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). She guided Scribe Video Center's Documentary History Project for Youth in 2004 and 2005 in his role as project facilitator and instructor.

Several local humanities scholars came on board as project consultants, and they met with the facilitators and the student artists to help them map out and focus what often seemed like an overwhelming amount of project research. The Fairmount Park project humanities scholars included: Penny Balkin Bach (executive director of the Fairmount Park Art Association), Ed Grusheski (the Philadelphia Water Department's general manager of public affairs and director of development for the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center), Peter Rose (an experimental filmmaker commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association to produce 1994's Pavilion in the Trees), the late Ernesta Ballard (a former Fairmount Park Commissioner and board member of the Philadelphia Parks Alliance), Fairmount Park historic preservation planner Theresa Stuhlman, and University of Pennsylvania Urban Studies professor Dominic Vitiello. The students also held meetings with biologists at Cobbs Creek Park, and did extensive research at the Library Company and the Urban Archives.