Teen youth workers from the MYAN (Maine Youth Action Network) program
at the Opportunity Alliance in collaboration with The Cutler Institute
at USM are working here at Portland Media Center for six weeks
creating a news show about civic engagement. Through interviews,
research, workshops, and filming scenes around Portland the message
that the group is working to convey is that there are many ways that
youth, and all people, can be civically engaged in their community,
it’s not just about voting every four years.

Mia, Angela and Douglass film scenes around Portland with the field
camera for their intro sequences in the news show. The show is called,
The New Youth Times.

Liv from The Cutler Institute at USM brainstorms with the group on a
logo design for the show in our PMC meeting/classroom space.

Mia interviews Michael Kebede, the Policy Director at the ACLU of
Maine, about his path to becoming a lawyer focused on criminal justice
and his advice for youth. On this shoot, Angela and Douglass worked as
Director, Cinematographer, and Sound recordist.

Daniel Karambelas from the Maine Improv Studio led an awesome improv
workshop with the group to help get everyone more comfortable with
performing which we found helpful toward creating our news show
characters and for interviewing.

Editing! We’ve been editing as we go with Premiere Pro and one of the
youth workers, Loic, has been working on music for the intro and
credits.

We conducted an interview with Chris Busby, founder and editor of The
Bollard in the PMC podcasting space, we asked him about how he started
the publication, how he finds his stories and how he engages with the
community.

A local band called the Shank Painters stopped by for an interview and
to perform a song. We interviewed them about how they weave activism
into their music.

The TV studio space at Portland Media Center is where we’re going to
film the news segments and the weather report in between the
interviews.

The group interviewed a fashion designer in the PMC front studio on how his work is socially engaged. 

News Center Maine, News Director, Mike Redding gave the group an awesome tour of News Center Maine and he shared about his path to journalism. 

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Reach out to us if you’d like to be involved with the project. Email
the Education Coordinator, Natalie: Natalie@PortlandMedia.org