WhatWeDo :: YouthVoice

Youth Voice has supported a total of 130 teams and a total of approximately 650 youth media producers between 2002 and 2005.

Youth Voice discourages open competition between finished products. Participation is open to all youths who wish to communicate through media. It supports production before submission, and has been evaluated as a meaningful model of projects to promote the production of original media by youths.

Youth Voice is intended to provide youths who wish to communicate through media the wide variety of stories captured through the lenses of the youthful eye, wider access to the means to that end. Applications are accepted in April each year.
The final invitees are selected through review of proposals, scenarios and presentations. Selection is decided upon how much they are “projects based on everyday life and experience,” or “projects reflecting the original perspective and ideas of youths.” Grants are provided to successful candidates, allowing access to production expenses, equipment lease, and enabling other activities. In addition, media education and professional mentoring are also provided to train youths who are newcomers to producing media.

The processes of production and resultant material of all team projects are displayed on the Youth Voice Web site. After completion of the program, exceptional teams selected are given the opportunity to participate in international exchanges.

The Center receives applications from and selects as Youth Voice Centers to community-based institutes and groups that work with marginalized youths, which also have firm commitment to the media education of youths. Sites selected are provided with operational expenses, relevant equipment, and expert advice on media training programs for a maximum of three years.
The objective is to provide wider access to systematic and long-term promotion of youth media education and creative activities.

The Center will serve as a model that formulates sound media education for youths based on the stable operations of media centers of the community.
As of 2006, four sites have been selected and are operating as Youth Voice Centers. They are Cheongju Social Education Center “Working People,” Cheonan “Bluebird Full of Sunshine,” Incheon “Seaside Path Going Up a Hill,” Seongnam “Didimdol Alternative School.”

The social education center “Working People,” located in Sajik-dong, Cheongju, is a private non-profit organization that addresses literacy of unschooled and under-schooled women through its program “Adult Citizen School,” and works to teach how to live as part of a community and encourage poor and vulnerable children and teenagers to hold wholesome values. The Cheongju Youth Voice Center seeks to enable such youths to engage in media activities and serve as a hub for such activities in the relevant regions, thereby promoting proactive production, distribution and enjoyment of media. To that end, the Cheongju Youth Voice Center strives to spur a wide variety of programs to develop and operate media production, and develop models of program operation,thereby giving youths access to the center and ensuring openness of participation. Ms. Lee Hye-Lin, volunteer teacher at the Noriul Gongbubang (community center) and team leader of the visual media team at the Chungbuk Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media is a media worker here.

Cheonan Youth Voice Center, which cooperates with “Bluebird Full of Sunshine,” is a regional children’s center in Wonseong-dong, Cheonan. Its aim is to provide youths with access to and enjoy media, which is a universal communication tool in this age, through integrated media literacy that youths discover in everyday life.Through that, the Center endeavors to formulate and provide youth media activities in which youths can communicate and participate through media without socio-economic exclusion or discrimination, and alternative ways of life. Ms. Eo Yun-Su of the Cheonan City Social Welfare Visual Media Information Center, is a media worker here.

The “Poor Hill,” located in Dowon-dong, Incheon, is a school for low-income youths in Dong-gu,
Incheon to enable more integrated procedures and activities in regional education. Regional networks and workers opened the school.
The Incheon Youth Voice Center provides a wide variety of media classes under the aim of fostering an integrative and community-oriented perspective. It aims to do so through serving as a conduit of communication between youths’ expression of perspectives on their lives and on social reality through media activities. Ms Ji Gyeong, of the “Seaside Path Going Up a Hill,” is media worker at the Incheon Youth Voice Center.

“Step Stone School,” located in Sujung-gu, Seongnam, is an open place for learning. It seeks to lay the groundwork for a better future for teenagers by assisting them in overcoming their current difficulties outside of school and find a desirable direction. The Seongnam Youth Voice Center aims at operating a “Healing Media Education Center” for the region’s marginalized youths and broken homes.
The Seongnam Center seeks to heal through mainly introspection using motion picture media. To that end, the Center is experimenting widely to teach ability to use media through a broad spectrum of activities. They include attempts at organic combination of media education and counseling; guiding youths to grow steadily through self documentaries; teach ability to use media through a wide variety of activities; and making motion picture activities a part of everyday life. Ms. Kim Gyeol of “Neulbom,” the Seongnam Visual Media Community, is media worker at the Seongnam Youth Voice Center.

Videos of process