Southwest Youth Writers Project -- "The Young Defenders"

Norma Sanders
Published: January 16, 2012

Southwest Neighborhood Youth Writers and Oral History Project is a news reporting program for current and recently graduated high school students. This inaugural program started as a six-week summer Art Options program (in partnership with Urban Gateways), designed for youth to document the oral histories of three Southwest side communities.

The program participants created written stories, audio and video pieces under the mentorship of professional journalist Vanessa Bush Ford and digital media artist Samantha Hill.

The writing sessions took place in the computer lab at the Boulevard Arts Center. The program provides young writers and digital artists the opportunity to serve as citizen journalists, to capture the details of the stories of three specific neighborhoods — Auburn-Gresham, Englewood, and Chicago Lawn.

One of our goals was to simply reflect on these neighborhood's meaning and to deliver them through written and digital form to their community. It truly was an authentic writing and studio experience, extended learning time, and reward for achievement of program goals…a collection of quality stories, as told by the elders in the community!

“The Southwest Neighborhood Youth Writers Project" is supported by the Local Reporting Initiative of Community News Matters, underwritten by The Chicago Community Trust with help from the McCormick, MacArthur, Knight and Driehaus Foundations, and administered by The Community Media Workshop and The Chicago Reporter.

Click here to read more about the program.

Keywords: Southwest Youth Writers Project