4 posts tagged “youth”
Carl you rock! Congrats to your awards, including the recent Best Documentary by London Independent Film Festival award! If you love poetry and youth and social justice - this is the documentary to watch.
ABOUT THE FILM: "2nd Verse” explores urban teen life in the San Francisco Bay Area through the rising popularity of poetry and Spoken Word. Although poetry is the unifying characteristic that brings these young people together, the film does not concentrate on their poems so much as it tells the story of their lives amid the Bay Area's melting pot of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We show how these teens coexist and draw strength from each other, and how these youth poets are changed by their engagement with spoken word, exploring their identity and connection to their unique California community. From a sixteen-year-old girl who lost her father to alcohol at a young age, to an undocumented teen struggling with poverty and his sexuality, to a privileged boy in San Francisco who attends one of the country’s most elite private schools, “Second Verse” endeavors to initiate the viewer into a world rarely seen or acknowledged by the general population."
"Spoken word in the Bay Area more than in any other place in the country is supported, is prolific, is dynamic, is political, and has more relevancy here than anywhere else in the country. I think that a large part of the catalyst for that is the amount of attention that young people are paying to themselves, to the lyricism in popular culture, in hip-hop culture and the way they are reacting to it. They are creating music but also expanding upon and creating a new form of lyricism, and I think it trickles up rather than trickling down. The youth get inspired by their mentors and by their educators but we in turn see the force with which young people are coming with their words and it just pushes the whole form forward." Marc Bamuthi Joseph: poet, performer, educator
Check out the new blog, Beijing Youth Voices, by 6 Chinese youth who live in Beijing--Iris, Siqi, Steven, Linda, E-mail, and Kelan. For the next few months, they will be posting bi-weekly blogs, giving you a peek into their lives and life in China. This blog is a project between the U.S. based-nonprofit What Kids Can Do, Inc. and Adobe Youth Voices.
Over the past few months of preparing this project, I have had the honor to work with What Kids Can Do, Adobe Youth Voices and ChinaPax (a Beijing based Mandarin language program). I am particularly excited about seeing this project come to life after a few months of connecting the most dynamic team of youth bloggers. Despite the number of Chinese blogs (being sited anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million), many blog posts that are written in Chinese rarely make it beyond China. With all the recent news surrounding China's Olympics in Beijing, we thought that in addition to the mass media reports it would be great to just hear what Beijing life is like from the perspective of 6 high school aged youth, who will be telling their stories (in English) of what Beijing means for them and what daily life is like.
Although we cannot stretch their writings to be reflective of life all over China, we can at least gain an intimate inside into life for these particular group of youth from a specific place and background. It is our hopes that through this aggregated blog, you will follow their writings for the next few months, give them encouragement and feedback by leaving comments on their writings. I am constantly amazed by their strength to open up their lives.
Please help spread the word about their blog by forwarding, reposting, or using their posts in your lesson plans!
Special thanks to Gloria Xu of Chinapax for being such a great facilitator!
I am in shock after reading Jeff Chang's post on Davidjacob's Random Walks. - but then again having worked for the UN briefly - I am not in shock at the blatant insensitivity of this ad. And hello UNICEF - it's obvious from your insincere apology below that you don't understand why people are protesting this campaign - it's not about the cosmetic brown make up itself - it's about the racism and stetreotypes that the make up signifies.
From Can't Stop Won't stop:
Save Africa hipsterism reached a new low this summer with this UNICEF campaign by ad company Jung von Matt/Alster presenting German children in blackface. You can see them beginning here. More analysis here.
Even the taglines, meant to call attention to Africa's educational crisis, sound nuts. Here's one: ""In Africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all."
Lost in translation maybe? Nein! After protests, there was this reply from a UNICEF official:
The idea behind is that children from Germany demonstrate their solidarity with children in Africa by showing up with a coloured make up. Their message is: "Children may look different but are equal - we all want to go to school." Absolutely no connotation of black children as "dirty children" was intended.
Before publishing the ad, we had carefully discussed possible misinterpretations and the agency had also tested public reaction in a survey in Germany, without receiving negative comments. Neither did we receive any negative reaction from the German public after publication.
The ad was published in a few high-quality print media like Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel, Die Zeit, Stern, free-of-charge. These media had never volunteered to publish the ad if they would have expected a negative connotation. Obviously, the perception of the ad varies by country... We apologize if you feel irritated by the make up of the children.
Onward...to cultural understanding, oh UNICEF soldiers!
Originally posted by Zentronix from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric
congrats to Zadi and Steve for winning a Webby! woohooo! not only are zadi and steve some of the coolest brooklynites ever - the are the coolest brooklynites - well along with me - in california! But seriously, I love Jetset show - so much that I wish they produced it every single day. Click on the play button below to watch one of my favorite episodes - then go to JETSET and watch the rest - Zadi and Steve are amazing editor!
