MEDIA ARTS OUTREACH

GOING GREEN: A YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT
By encouraging youth to create work based on their research, their experiences and those of their families, these students will investigate the impacts of fossil fuels and the possibilities of new energy solutions. This program is being created in conjunction with the organizations New Energy Economy www.newenergyeconomy.org and 1Sky New Mexico 1skynewmexico.org, which create green-power-based economic development opportunities, and recruit youth for them.

This project offers sound filmmaking skills to young, motivated leaders. The overwhelming amount of corporate, profit-driven and lowest-common-denominator media has displaced traditional forms of storytelling and information dissemination. Today, rather than learning about the world outside their front doors, many youth are immersed in Hollywood and TV fantasy. For minority youth, as numerous studies have shown, the caricatures presented by today's industrial-entertainment complex can be particularly destructive. We believe the best way to learn to deconstruct media is to make it. By encouraging promising, emergent leaders to use digital tools to tell their own stories, we also teach them how to navigate the oft-treacherous mainstream media.

This pilot program serves as the test case for expanded community-oriented, collaborative media projects, each intended as a tool for indigenous youth leadership, professional development and the advancement of green energy initiatives.