Cal Humanities

"The understanding of a culture comes from hearing the language, tasting the food, seeing personal interactions, experiencing the traditions, and so much more in context."

— Elizabeth Laval & Candice Pendergrass, Sikh Youth Public History Project

"The understanding of a culture comes from hearing the language, tasting the food, seeing personal interactions, experiencing the traditions, and so much more when it is in context."

— Elizabeth Laval & Candice Pendergrass, Sikh Youth Public History Project

California Humanities Awards $73,348 to 5 New Youth Media Projects

Grants Support Emerging Media Makers Through Podcasts, Filmmaking, Digital Production and More

For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Claudia Leung, cleung@calhum.org, 415.391.1474 x303

June 10, 2019

(Oakland, CA) — After a highly competitive process, California Humanities is pleased to announce $73,348 in awards to five new projects through the 2019 California Documentary Project (CDP) NEXT GEN grant program.

The five CDP NEXT GEN awards support media projects by emerging media makers age 18 and under that shed light on current issues, solutions, and futures as envisioned by young people. Projects in the second round of awards in this category range from social justice-focused free media training for young people of color in the Bay Area to hands-on experience for youth producing an award-winning web series featuring a famed Los Angeles-based poet.

“With this cohort of grantees, we see a remarkable range of approaches to encouraging youth to share the issues that mean the most to them,” said Julie Fry, President & CEO of California Humanities. “I am so pleased that we’re able to support the next generation of innovative young storytellers with these media-making projects throughout the state.”

CDP NEXT GEN grants are designed for youth media organizations in support of emerging California media makers. Presented in alignment with CA 2020: Youth Perspective and the Future of California, a statewide initiative that focuses on the lives and experiences of young people in California, CDP NEXT GEN invites applications from California-based nonprofit organizations and public agencies with established track records in youth media programming to provide training and support to emerging media makers in the creation of short, insightful nonfiction films and/or podcasts that tell original stories about life in California today. NEXT GEN funding is available for up to $15,000 per project.

CDP NEXT GEN Grants AWARDED IN SPRING 2019

BAYCAT’s Zoom In Series: Your New Storytellers Are Here!
Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology, San Francisco
Project Director: Nisa Sanders
Grant Amount: $15,000

BAYCAT (Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts & Technology (BAYCAT)’s Youth Academy will provide free hands-on digital media training to young storytellers from low-income Bay Area communities of color, empowering them to discover and activate their own creative voices and narratives. Youth work in cohorts to produce themed episodes of their award-winning media series Zoom In, which explores critical social justice issues and responds to local current events from the perspective of youth themselves. The project serves as an opportunity to not only celebrate diverse youth storytellers and build social justice awareness around the issues they face, but also to shine light on the solutions that youth propose.

Get Lit Globe
Get Lit Words Ignite, Inc., Los Angeles
Project Director: Samuel Curtis
Grant Amount: $15,000

Literary Riot Media, Get Lit’s youth media program for students ages 13 to 18, will produce Get Lit Globe, a documentary and interview web series hosted by acclaimed Los Angeles poet, Maia Mayor. Maia will speak with well-known poets, authors, and thinkers covering issues that connect all writers around the globe, explore the diverse neighborhoods of LA seen through the lens of a poet, and create an intimate, real-world portrait of the city and its youth culture.

Kayamanan Ng Lahi’s (KNL’s) Media PAMANA Project
Visual Communications, Los Angeles
Project Director: Giselle Tongi
Grant Amount: $15,000

KNL’s Media PAMANA Project will train youth participants (called Pamana/ Jr. Sayawit) of Kayamanan ng Lahi Philippine Folk Arts group in media production skills to create short videos that explore their immigrant identity through the cultural traditions and customs of Philippine folk arts. Through documenting the stories of their immigrant families, culture, and community, media becomes the vehicle for self-expression and self-identification.

Radio Pulso
USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism/Boyle Heights Beat, Los Angeles
Project Director: Michelle Levander
Grant Amount: $14,298

Radio Pulso is a community radio program and podcast hosted and reported by youth reporters that covers topics relevant to the low-income, largely immigrant Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. With community input, youth reporters choose the subject matter for each podcast and research and write and produce the shows with mentoring from professional journalists. Radio Pulso is a project of Boyle Heights Beat, a youth development program and bilingual news source that has been providing “noticias por y para la comunidad” or “news for and by the community” since 2010.

#TimesUp, Now What?
Reel Stories – A Film Program for Girls, Oakland
Project Director: Esther Pearl
Grant Amount: $14,050

Through found footage, interviews, and conversations, Reel Stories teen-aged female and gender non-binary filmmakers will develop and produce a short film on their perspectives in the age of #MeToo and #TimesUp. The film will create a platform for these young filmmakers to develop their voices and documentary storytelling skills, as well to become leaders and advocates for a more equitable future.

ABOUT CALIFORNIA HUMANITIES

California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, promotes the humanities—focused on ideas, conversation and learning—as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more, visit calhum.org or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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