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Doing What We Do: Positive Peer Productions Investigates "Audience"

February 12, 2014




The youth that make up EMEAC's Positive Peer Productions were recently back in the classroom working on their documentary! 

This time they investigated "audience" by answering questions like: Who is the target audience for their documentary (2-8 year olds and their families)? What do the Positive Peer youth know about themselves and their communities? What conclusions can they draw about their audience based on their observations?

The conversation this workshop inspired was extremely expansive (as you'll see in the video!) and covered everything from what responsibilities filmmakers have to younger viewers to irritating media stereotypes about Detroit youth. Youth know about their communities and their lives and they definitely have opinions on all of it!

Stay tuned... 

You can view more "Doing What We Do" videos:
Part One
Part Two





 

More Priscilla Interviews...



EMEAC's Ready 2 Grow's Priscilla is back at Palmer Park Preparatory Academy with her camera again. This installation of "Priscilla Interviews" shows her asking the young people what their favorite fruits are. Their answers are not only interesting, but extremely cute!

Part of the work that EMEAC's Ready 2 Grow program does is create spaces where young people can engage in the process of growing food. By learning about things like why healthy dirt or clean water is essential to growing healthy sustainable food, young people learn about the environment in a way that is not only hands on, but tasty too! Creating media that centers young people's thoughts and opinions on the food that they grow/eat helps to create positive spaces for other young people to think through their own feelings around food as well.


 

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Release of Our Power film

February 11, 2014

Our Power Campaign: Communities Uniting for a Just Transition


February 11 is the 20th anniversary of President Bill Clinton's Environmental Justice Executive Order. This order was a critical milestone: official acknowledgement of environmental racism and the disproportionate impact that frontline communities of color and low-income communities face from toxic pollution.
Frontline communities continue to lead the fight for environmental justice and a powerful new alliance is emerging to confront one of the greatest environmental injustices of our times: the destabilization of our climate.  We want to share with you a powerful short film about an exciting new initiative: the Our Power Campaign!  

The film highlights the Campaign in general, but specifically focuses on the Our Power gathering in Black Mesa, AZ (June 2013).  Called From the Mesa to the Mountain Top: Climate Justice in Coal Country, the gathering focused on frontline communities impacted by coal: from coal extraction to false solutions promoted by industry, such as natural gas and clean coal.  In the video representatives of the Black Mesa Water Coalition speak about their important campaign involving water access and energy production. Other members of the Climate Justice Alliance, including EMEAC's Ife Kilimanjaro, speak briefly about coal in their communities.

The second Our Power gathering will be held in Detroit, June 2014, and is focused on scaling up the leadership and presence of youth and young adults in generating solutions for a just transition from reliance on exploitative, unsustainable practices and policies to those that are sustainable and nurture healthy communities.  For more information or to get involved, contact Ife Kilimanjaro at ife[at]emeac.org.




 EMEAC is a member of and serves on the Steering Committee of the Climate Justice Alliance, a collaborative of community-based and movement support organizations uniting frontline communities to forge a scalable, socially and economically just transition away from unsustainable energy and false solutions to climate change. 


 

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Yummy Justice with the CFA Interns

February 7, 2014



The Catherine Ferguson Academy interns stayed busy over the course of their internship learning about food justice and it's relationship to environmental justice and media justice.

They learned how to make many different foods they'd never made before, including different types of smoothies and sweet potatoes cooked in different methods (boiled, baked, pureed).

The CFA interns also shared recipes from their own lives with each other and taught each other how to make them. Food justice requires accessibility to not just healthy food, but to food that is culturally appropriate as well. The following guacamole recipe comes from CFA intern Dunia. You'll notice how adept she is at the cutting and de-pitting of the avacado!

The entire video was shot, edited and produced by the CFA interns! Enjoy!



 

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Doing What We Do: Positive Peer Productions Answers "Why is 'the environment' important?"

February 3, 2014




The youth that make up EMEAC's Positive Peer Productions often get questions on how they "do what they do." That is, how did they create the various "What's Mixing?" videos? What is the process they used to create storyboards? Or to shoot the footage? Or finally get the videos up online so that community members can see them?

We decided to create a series of videos that would answer these questions. This video below shows the second Positive Peer Productions meeting at Palmer Park Preparatory Academy in Detroit, Michigan. During this session, the youth worked to unpack the question "Why is 'the environment' important?" The depth and complexity of their answers astonished even us! 

Eventually, these youth will use their immense knowledge to create and shape media messages for their peers and younger children as well as their parents, caregivers and educators!

Stay tuned... 



 

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Gentrification: The Untold Story of Detroit


EMEAC's Young Educators Alliance picked up their video cameras last year and talked to local Detroiters about land and gentrification.

 The following video is the result of their hard work!