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We’re happy to announce that this June we launched our first annual EVC Summer Institute at the University of East London in partnership with the University of East London Cass School of Education and Communities. Postgraduate student teachers, undergraduates, and faculty members worked collaboratively through this intensive, five-day experience to produce their own documentary video, Regeneration: Building Whose Dream?  about gentrification and displacement in the Stratford community of East London. Co-taught by EVC Executive Director Steve Goodman and Dr. ML White from the Cass School of Education and Communities, participants developed strategies for building digital and print literacy and facilitating a project based inquiry with students in response to community social justice issues.  While there, Steve also gave a talk for the UEL’s Practitioner Research Group on EVC’s participatory action research project with the NYC DOE Office of Postsecondary Readiness on student and police relations.

This June, EVC launched a pilot project–”We Are All Connected”—in partnership with the Parent Resource Center of Duff, TN with generous support from Mozilla Hive NYC Fund.  The project began with a one week collaborative digital media summer camp in Tennessee as an effort to bridge the rural/urban divide and the digital divide. Students will be be exploring two separate topics of urgent concern to both urban and rural youth: the impact of opioid addiction on their communities, and access to broadband internet. They will collaborate remotely throughout the fall semester, researching, editing footage, and conducting interviews. All will reunite at the end of December to launch their website and screen their film in New York City.

Applications for the Fall 2017 program are currently closed.  Check back in January 2018 for details on how to apply for the next program. Interested in a media arts career? Join this exciting after school workshop and you will create a website about a social issue important to you, learn how to shoot video, take photographs, and edit in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere—all while earning high school AND college credit! LEARN NEW SKILLS Collaborate with other youth producers to create an interactive website on a social issue that is important to you. Build critical digital media skills using digital video cameras, photo and video editing software. Meet important community leaders and media arts professionals across New York City. EARN CREDIT Apply now if you are enrolled in high school and are 16 years or older. PROGRAM DETAILS Program Start Date: October 2, 2017 Program End Date: January 10, 2018 Applications are presently closed. Please check back in January 2018! Follow Us The Educational Video Center is a non-profit youth media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video as a means to develop the artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change.

In these troubling times when our country has become so deeply divided across racial and urban and rural lines, EVC is doing our part to bridge those differences. We’ve launched the “We Are All Connected” project bringing EVC students from New York City to live and make media together with youth from the Appalachian mining communities of Clearfolk Valley, Tennessee. Investigating critical social problems plaguing young people in both their communities such as the opioid addiction crisis, chronic poverty, and the digital divide, they are making their voices heard through documentaries and a common website. Through their summer camp and continued collaboration remotely during the fall, the youth have learned how much they have in common and how inter-connected their communities really are. The project culminates with the Tennessee students traveling to NYC in December. They’ve generated so much interest, that they wer invited to present their work at Mozilla’s international MozFest in London. EVC’s commitment to our students’ education and wellbeing is long standing. For over 30 years, we’ve taught youth to use filmmaking as a tool for social justice in their schools and communities, in both urban and rural America. Our Appalachian partnership today dates back to the mid 1980’s when EVC first held summer urban/rural youth video camps in East Tennessee. So, you can see at EVC, we’re in it for the long haul. Over the decades, we’ve always been there for our students, developing them as academically curious and civically engaged youth leaders, nurturing their spirit of learning, art and activism. But we can’t do this work without your help. So please give generously to make sure we can continue teaching students and buying the equipment needed to offer life-changing programs for youth – whether they live in the housing projects of the South Bronx or the Cumberland Mountains of East Tennessee. We need your support now more than ever to ensure that we are there for our students for decades to come. Stay tuned for upcoming messages to meet some of the youth whose lives have been transformed at EVC. Thank you so much for your love and support! FOLLOW US The Educational Video Center is a non-profit youth media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video as a means to develop the artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change.

EVC staff and Youth Producers having a little end of year fun There’s still time left for you to make your tax-deductible donation to EVC before the year is up! And with your generous support, we can continue offering another year of transformative groundbreaking youth documentary and media arts programs. Thanks for all the love and commitment you’ve given this year to the amazing talented youth we serve. And please remember to save the date for our upcoming events on January 3rd and January 11th. Warm wishes to you from EVC for a 2018 filled with youthful art and activism; see you in the new year! Click here for an inside look at EVC’s We Are All Connected project, an effort to bridge the urban and rural divide through our youth’s media and activism.

We are so proud of our students for their amazing work over this past semester. Here are snapshots of the culminating program events that celebrated their successes in all three of our core programs. You can check out the full albums at https://www.facebook.com/educationalvideocenter/. HBO YOUTH DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP PREMIERE EVC students premiered their two documentaries, The Queer Survival Guide and Life In Here, on January 11th at the HBO Theater to a standing room only audience of almost 200 people! The screening was a moving, transformative, and very memorable experience for us all as our students presented their powerful films exploring the causes and impacts of unintended teen pregnancies on young people in New York City and how communities can create safe spaces for LGBT youth. Furthermore, we took a moment to recognize and honor the legacy of our Founder and Executive Director, Steve Goodman, as it was his last screening as our ED. Please check out the tribute video staff put together capturing his time here at EVC and the legacy we will carry on. A special thanks to HBO for the donated screening space and reception that followed! WE ARE ALL CONNECTED (WAC) PROJECT LAUNCH After 5 months, our Tennessee and NYC students finally reunited last month, living and working together in New York City to launch their project earlier this month. On January 3rd, they launched their website and screened their film, Helping Open People’s Eyes, about the similar ways in which opioid addiction is affecting both urban and rural communities. They plan on continuing this work by increasing awareness about addiction and the variety of options to help, such as the Narcan Nasal Spray, in their respective communities through more presentations and screenings of their website and film. A special thanks to Hostos Community College for hosting us and the Mozilla Foundation for supporting this transformative and critical work! Be sure to check out the local Knoxville’s ABC News feature story about our project and please continue to help us to spread the word! NEW MEDIA ARTS LAUNCH PARTY As their remixed websites went live, EVC youth producers came together on December 21st for a launch celebration with an audience of 50 people including family, teachers, peers, mentors, industry professionals and community members from all over New York City. We celebrated students’ work as they presented all 5 of their New Media Arts remixed websites and engaged the audience in dialogue about sexual assault and harassment; media’s impact on society’s perceptions of terrorism; the ways in which youth cope with mental illness; depictions of race in American media; and post-secondary decisions for students. After successfully presenting digital portfolios, students will earn both high school and college credit from the Hostos Community College’s Media Design program. A special thanks to New York Parks and Recreation and Hostos Community College for partnering with us and the Hive Digital Media Learning Fund at the New York Community Trust and ExpandED Schools for supporting this inspiring work! Thank you again for your generous support of our students’ work in 2017 and your contributions to EVC in support of our Year End Appeal campaign. Your donations helped us to meet and surpass our goal raising over $17,000! As one year of programming ends, another begins as we are now gearing up for our Spring semester workshops. We hope that you will continue to support us as we transition into a New Year and new era of EVC. Please be on the lookout for student recruitment and more upcoming events!

EVC will be hosting its Fall Benefit on Wednesday, November 7th at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village. Stay tuned for further details and ticketing information!

EVC’s founding director, Steve Goodman, has worked closely with students throughout his career to help them leverage the power of storytelling in transforming their own lives. Steve’s new book, It’s Not About Grit: Trauma, Inequity and the Power of Transformative Teaching, captures a number of these eye-opening and inspiring stories. We invite you to attend a talk on one of the dates and locations outlined below to hear Steve discuss his observations as well as share student footage that accompanies the book. You can find more information about the book here.

On February 18th, Youth Producers from EVC’s Winter Youth Documentary Workshop visited JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) at Hudson Yards for a private screening of their documentary, Cops Are(n’t) Colorblind: Changing the NYPD from Inside and Out. The screening was hosted by JPMC’s BOLD initiative for Black History Month. Following the screening, JPMC employees engaged with students in a passionate Q&A and engaged them in one-on-one conversations about their interests and passions. After the Q&A, our youth were given a tour of the wonderful JPMorgan Chase facility. Thank you to Jahaad Martin for his incredible dedication and support to make this event possible, as well as the entire JPMorgan Chase team including BOLD (Black Organization for Leadership Development), BLACKS in Technology, DEEC, and 5MW Amenities for being sponsorship partners of this event. If your company or non-profit is interested in screening a youth produced documentary, email us at info@evc.org.

On March 1st, our Board member Amy Plotch and her husband Phil hosted an intimate fundraising screening and cocktail party at their home in Radburn, NJ to benefit EVC. The gathering was attended by Amy’s family and friends, EVC staff and Youth Documentary Workshop alumni Realene Holmes and Kellon Innocent. Attendees watched our 2013 documentary “Beyond Bullying,” produced by Raelene, and participated in a passionate discussion afterwards. Thank you Amy and Phil for opening your home to a space for important conversation centering our Youth Producers’ work.

We are excited to announce that our Board of Directors has grown and are eager to introduce our newest Board members Marga Graves and Albert Bahar who joined this Spring! Ms. Graves is a Deal Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, bringing her consulting experience and financial expertise to EVC. She has joined EVC’s Finance Committee. She passionately believes in making arts education available for all children, and is excited to use her consulting experience to build out our strategic planning capacity. Mr. Bahar is Head of Digital Strategy, Travel, and Hospitality at Adobe. Like the youth we work with, as a teenager, he made documentary films, and credits this experience with opening his eyes to the world. We are eager to work with his strategic management and digital marketing expertise and deepen our partnership with Adobe. Many thanks to Cause Strategy Partners for letting EVC participate in BoardLead, a program that connects talented professionals with nonprofit boards, for making this partnership possible.

We are excited to announce that our Board of Directors has grown and are eager to introduce our newest Board members Tiffany Harrington and Jahaad J. Martin who joined in August! Ms. Harrington is an Assistant Manager of Promotional Planning at HBO/Warner Media, as well as the Co-Chair of HBO Salute, the Veterans Business Resource Group, bringing her media and TV experience to EVC. She has been volunteering with EVC for over a year through attending youth film screenings, giving career talks to students, and providing one-on-one mentorship to our students. In addition, she was one of our top fundraisers for EVC’s Un-Benefit. She is passionate about supporting young people of color in their exploration of careers in the media and TV sectors, and is excited to share her personal experience and help open doors for EVC’s youth. Mr. Martin is an Executive Director and Market Director of Wealth at JPMorgan Chase & Co. He is also the Co-Chair for BOLD (Black Organization for Leadership Development) Lower Manhattan and on the leadership team for BOLD Tri State at JPMorgan Chase. He has been volunteering with EVC for over a year through attending youth film screenings, providing one-on-one mentorship to our students, and creating new and unique opportunities for our youth to screen their films with the larger JPMorgan Chase community. He is passionate about volunteering and mentoring youth. We are eager to learn from his finance expertise and deepen our partnership with JPMorgan Chase. If you are interested in learning about becoming an EVC board member please contact Ambreen Qureshi, Executive Director at EVC at aqureshi@evc.org.