At EVC, we believe there is no better way to teach students the power of storytelling and community inquiry than to give them the experience of becoming researchers, producers, authors, and editors. And the same is true for teachers. They need to first experience the process for themselves as learners before they can “own” and effectively facilitate this inquiry-based documentary method with their students.

Shakeima Cooks was a member of the EVC youth documentary team that produced The War Within: Youth Depression which premiered last month at the HBO Screening Room. Shakeima currently attends City College and will graduate next year in June 2011.

How did you first get interested in filmmaking?

I first got interested in filmmaking when I saw the movie, The Color Purple. It touched on so many issues. I really began to understand that filmmaking can educate people about a particular race or culture that people may have been ignorant on. And that's when I knew that I wanted to get into filmmaking.

Thinking back on your 10 month experience working on The War Within, was there any one experience that stood out for you?

Yes, the one experience that stood out was when we got a chance to volunteer for the author Terrie Williams in her campaign, “Healing Starts With Us.” I got the chance to meet with a psychiatrist and discuss issues that I have been battling and struggling with since my childhood. This later on helped me to seek counseling at Full Circle Health. And I realized that I am not the only one battling depression -- that there were many others.

What is the main message you wanted to get across to youth audiences with your documentary?

The main message for audiences that will see this film is: despite the stigma of depression, it's good to get help. If depression is left untreated it can lead to negative coping strategies such as cutting yourself or even such negative outcomes as suicide.

What were the most important things you learned from your experience at EVC?

I learned from EVC the importance of networking and the importance of being versatile in my skills. Not only was I the camera person and the editor, but I was also the interviewer, and sometimes the interviewee. It's good to be behind the camera and also get a sense of what it's like to be in front of the camera.

What are your career goals?

I want to be a filmmaker, I want to get into acting, and I want to do broadcast journalism. In the future, I want to start my own non-profit center. It would be an educational center or a counseling center because a lot of urban and minority youth need someone to talk to about the importance of their education and other issues in their lives.

Do you have any advice you would give other young people still in high school who are interested in making documentaries?

I would tell them to find a program that fits their needs. It could be entry level, but just get all the experience you can. I have a quote I go by: Life is like an abandoned baby who cries and one day gets offered a tissue. My whole concept is: life is unpredictable. We might be going through something that seems unbearable at the time, but these problems only prepare you for greatness in the future.

Depression is a hidden crisis among young people of color, one that impacts their families, schools, and communities. Too often, there is a stigma and a sense of denial associated with depression. Youth in communities of color often feel they have no options for affordable, culturally relevant therapies. In The War Within, youth tell powerful stories of their experiences with depression and the treatments they have found to cope with it. Through interviews with youth, clinicians, and mental health advocates, this film gives important information and a message of life-affirming hope for others who may be struggling with this widespread problem.

Watch an excerpt

Ford Foundation Supports Design and Pilot Testing of New EVC Evaluation Tools

With generous support from the Ford Foundation's Good Neighbor Committee, EVC provided professional development and in-class coaching for teachers from the ACCESS GED program in Manhattan to support the implementation of EVC's community documentary curriculum in their extended day program. Through this program, the students created a powerful documentary on the impact of religion. In addition, this grant funded researchers from the Center for Children and Technology/EDC to design and pilot test at the ACCESS site evaluation instruments that will support the scale up of EVC's methodology in other school districts. These evaluation frameworks will better allow EVC staff to observe, document, and assess the process of local adaptation while maintaining the rigor and quality of the EVC curriculum model. EVC expects the collection of uniform evaluation data across multiple sites will support both ongoing formative evaluation to inform program improvement, and outcome evaluation to demonstrate program quality and impact. The key questions to be addressed by this effort are:

1) Which are the most essential promising practices drawn from EVC's Documentary Workshop model that can be transferred and successfully applied in External Education Program school settings?

2) How can these practices be made visible and measurable to support the monitoring and evaluation of program implementation as the program is brought to scale on a national basis?

EVC's Executive Director Steve Goodman has been invited as one of 40 youth media leaders to participate in the 2009 Youth Media Summit funded by the McCormick Foundation. The Academy for Educational Development (AED) will convene this summit August 5-7 in Lake Forest, IL for the purpose of strategizing ways to better collaborate and maximize the impact of youth media.

EVC will also present a workshop on its method of teaching critical literacy at the NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education) Conference this August in Detroit, MI titled “Bridging Literacies: Critical Connections in a Digital World.”